


Need Your Hidden Love

by ziamsquad



Category: Grey's Anatomy, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Breakup, Doctor Liam Payne, Doctor Zayn Malik, Excessive Drinking, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Zayn Malik & Louis Tomlinson Friendship, greys AU! no previous knowledge needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-04 20:35:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 30,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13372578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziamsquad/pseuds/ziamsquad
Summary: Liam Payne is the one of the country's most respected neurosurgeons, and he loves a challenge.orZayn sleeps with his boss before he knows that's his boss.





	1. Chapter 1

 

As a doctor, there were many things Zayn wanted to be known as like _determined_ , _fast_ - _paced_ or maybe _incredibly_ _talented_. Unpunctual, however, was not one of them. His eyes go from the flashing clock in front of him to the unconscious man lying on his floor and all his future prospects are flushed down a drain.

Shit. _Shit_.

He stumbles off the sofa he was on, and throws his blanket onto his visitor while kicking him gently. “Get up,” He hisses, “I’m late.” The only response he gets is a groan. Zayn thinks of all the reasons he should have listened to the theoretical part of his mind last night and not have gone out.

He completes his morning routine in a record of seven minutes, including a shower, brushing his teeth and washing his face. He scrambles around his bedroom for a smart first-day-of-work type shirt and trousers. he rushes back into his living room and is reminded very suddenly of his very naked companion, who was now standing up and blinking very slowly with a blanket around his waist. In the back of his head all he can think of is how his nan knitted him that for a housewarming gift, and it was definitely not being used how she had intended.

“Why are you still here?” Zayn demands, and he’s not usually this horrible in the morning, really. It’s just that – well, he’s waited for this day for years and it’s close to being ruined by the man built like a perfectly chiselled Greek statue casually hanging about in his living room.

“Nice house.” The guy comments, his eyes wondering the large room thoughtfully. Zayn however, keeps his eyes to himself and makes sure not to look at the stretch of the man’s shoulders or his narrow waist, or even his set of flawless abs.

“Thanks –” He squints at the guy for a second, rattling his head for a name. He knows it’s in there somewhere.

“Really?” The guy raises his brows. “ _Liam_. it’s Liam.”

“Right!” Zayn says, a little to enthusiastically, all too eager for this conversation to be over. “That’s fantastic, Liam. You really need to get dressed and leave.”

He usually would have expected a normal person to be offended by this, but Liam laughs. Zayn really does not have the time.

*

His day definitely gets better, he meets the other interns and most of them were stoic and uninviting, probably because they were each other’s ‘competition’. Zayn thought it was pointless to shut everyone out, they were going to spend a year with these people and it’d be far easier if everyone was on the same team. A certain Louis Tomlinson apparently thought the same thing, because he spent their entire lunch break (all nine minutes, before he was paged) introducing himself.

He wanted to impress his Residents, which is why he was currently throwing his half full cup of coffee away and swiftly walking back inside to match Doctor Styles’ pace. The taller man nods in approval when he sees him, “Malik, page Horan and join me to meet a patient.” He says whilst pushing the door open to a patient’s room.

Zayn nods rapidly and before he can respond Doctor Styles disappears behind the door. A second later, Niall, another intern in the same group as him appears beside him. The blonde is practically buzzing in his spot, looking both excited and nervous enough to puke.

“Hey, Zayn right?” He asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “We should go in.”

Zayn’s quick on his feet and with his mind, so when he’s put on the spot with a question about the patient he answers promptly. It is incredibly hard, the way several pairs of eyes watch you expectantly, but the years of scrutinising studying make it hard to mess up.

After the short diagnoses procedure is over Zayn is just about ready for the day to end. That was the last of about eight patients he’d been introduced to and diagnosed, never allowed to go beyond their rooms into the operating theatres.

 “That was amazing.” Niall says, looking exhilarated and Zayn agrees. “I can’t wait to be able operate one day.” He says, something wistful in his eyes.

Zayn laughs, “We’ve got a long way to go, buddy,” patting the other boys back, who just grins back at him.

“Well I’m off for the day.” Niall says, “Handy having a bar right across us.” Zayn is close to inviting himself along, because he’s been on his legs for the last eight hours and he was _exhausted_.

Zayn doesn’t get that lucky though, because Dr. Styles approaches him and presses a file to his chest “This is for Dr. Payne’s patient, get it to him immediately. He should be just behind those doors” He says, before he does that thing where he disappears from sight within a second. Okay, Zayn could see his stocky frame turning at the end of the hallway, but that guy was inhumanely fast.

Styles was the exact embodiment of the type of doctor he wanted to be after he qualified. Everyone had the utmost respect for the guy and Zayn was sure his reputation would proceed him once he got to know him better. He moves towards the double doors Styles has pointed towards and pushes through them, scanning the crowded room.

He hadn’t been introduced to Dr. Payne so he wasn’t entirely sure how he was expected to pass this file onto him, but he continues to glance around. It happens very quickly, the way his heart catches in is throat as a man in blue scrubs and a bandana pushing his hair back and meets his eyes. Those soft honey brown eyes were hard to forget, but that’s not what Zayn’s thinking about when he does the quickest pivot of his life and goes back through the doors in a rush.

His mouth feels dry and his heart was pounding in his chest, because this was definitely the biggest screw-up of his career. The career that seemed to be dwindling right before his eyes.

He goes through another set of doors into the stairway so he could take a deep breath away from the bustle of people. He was going to get kicked out the program. Not because he accidentally killed a patient and was an awful doctor, he was going to get kicked out because he slept with his _boss_.

The same boss who decided whether or not he was good enough of an intern to continue to become a surgeon. Zayn was going to be sick. His stomach feels heavy as he thinks about how he’s going to explain this to his parents, or the several dozen people rooting for his career.

It wasn’t easy to get accepted into such a good program at one of the best teaching hospitals in the country, and if he slips up he could easily lose his place. He wasn’t ready for that to happen to him, he had worked way too hard to get to this point.

He hears the doors open behind him whirls around. Liam is standing in front of him now, looking at him expectantly. “Nice to see you again Zayn, you’re one of Dr. Styles interns?”

Zayn nods mutely.

“I believe those are for me?” He asks, looking pointedly to the file clutched to Zayn’s chest. He nods again, passing it over to him. His arms felt impossibly heavy when he moved them, he was definitely going to be sick.

Liam makes a noise that was something between a laugh and scoff. “You weren’t this quiet yesterday.”

Zayn can feel his face grow hot, and he’s confused, wasn’t Liam supposed to be _anything_ but amused? “I -I’m sorry about that, I didn’t know you were-” He glances at the nametag and scrubs the other man was wearing. “My boss.”

Liam was a bit taller than, definitely more muscular and defined. He stood confidently, his shoulders squared and his eyes fixed on Zayn’s.

“Neither of us could have known.” He shrugs, a slight smirk on his face. “I know I didn’t expect for one of the new interns to also be the same guy who kicked me out his house in the morning.”

If Zayn wasn’t blushing before, he certainly was now. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done that,” He says quickly, “I didn’t want to be late on my first day. I just -I didn’t think I could possibly ruin a first day more than I have today.” He blurts out.

Liam raises his brows at him, his lips quirking up into something resembling a smile. Zayn hated to even think it but Liam was devastatingly handsome with his full lips and strong jawline and annoyingly cocky demeanour. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss he guy or throw him down the set of stairs.

“Well, why do you think you messed up?” Liam asks, his voice calm and soothing, as if the answer wasn’t glaring right at him.

“Seriously?” He asks incredulously. “I slept with my --” He catches himself and quickly looks around to check if anyone was around. He lowers his voice to a harsh whisper. “I slept with my _boss_.”

Zayn swears he really was going to throw Liam down the stairs if he looked at him with his brows raised and an amused expression on his face _one_ more time. “Well, I suppose if you.” He pauses for a second. “Let me take you out to dinner this would be considered slightly more orthodox. But only slightly.”

Zayn really truly thinks he’s beginning to hear things. There was no way Liam had this much disregard for the rules.

“Oh and for the record,” Liam smirks, a glint in his eye. “I’m your boss’ boss.”

 By now, his heart was sitting at the bottom of his stomach. “You’re being ridiculous.” Zayn final gets out. His throat feels dry and he doesn’t understand what in the world is happening anymore. “I’m an intern, I could get kicked out for this.” There was no way this guy wasn’t insane.

“Hey, watch how you talk to your superiors.” Liam says, his brows knitting together, but Zayn could see the bemusement in his eyes.

Zayn narrows his eyes, “I’m glad this is funny to you Dr. Payne, but I have to decline.” He turns and pulls the door open, “And _please_ forget yesterday happened.”

 

 

*

When he was searching for new roommates to help pay the rent of his father’s large house, he hoped they would be people he didn’t know so he wouldn’t have to be nice or greet them every time they passed in the hallway. He knew you couldn’t live with friends without ending up resenting them and he made that perfectly clear several times.

So he’s not entirely sure why he’s sitting on his sofa with Niall on his left and Louis on his right. He’d known them for just over two weeks now, and it shouldn’t be enough to get to know a person but they’d spent every waking moment together in the hospital and somehow it felt like he’s known them his entire life.

Louis was loud and flighty, he loved chaos so he thrived in the bustle of the hospital. He was the first to see the sign Zayn put up on the corkboard, mostly because he was standing right beside him.

“Seriously? Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked, following Zayn briskly. “You know I can’t keep on living in the basement of my mum’s house anymore. I have five sisters!”

Zayn was adamant to not live with Louis, there was no way they’d be able to co-exist in the same house without killing each other.

Niall was next to start following him around like a lost puppy. He was a lot calmer than Louis, and being around him made Zayn relax too. “Your place is so much closer to here, I can’t keep commuting.” He groans. “It’s killing me.”

“No,” Zayn said, passing his clipboard to Niall. “Room 35 guy’s shattered rib is killing him. _You_ are just dramatic.”

He held his ground, he really did. But Niall and Louis were competing against a bunch of people who made Zayn want to gouge his eyeballs out, so it didn’t take much for him to eventually relent and here they were.

The three of them in one house.

“So, how are we going to spend our first night.” Louis says, only half joking. “Watch movies and do each other’s hair? Hot chocolate and marshmallow? Oh! Face masks, definitely.”

“Shut up, Louis.” Zayn grunted, pushing himself of the sofa. “Piss off and let me sleep.” He thinks if he tries hard enough he can squeeze a solid four hours in today.

“Alright, moody.” Louis huffs. “Niall and I will order takeaway while you retreat back to your coffin.”

Zayn flips him off and leaves the room.

*

He gets used to the whole roommate situation after a while. He just wasn’t used to having friends so close to him so often. It wasn’t so bad actually, Niall’s music was awful and loud but he made coffee for everyone in the morning just how they liked it so he dealt with it.

Louis was somehow even moodier than Zayn when he was running on a couple of hours of sleep, so they didn’t get in each other’s way much. He was also a good person to vent to occasionally even though most of his solutions ended up with the three of them drunk and curled up on one bed.

It was nice.

“Fix your hair Zayn, we got to go.” Louis says, tiredness curling around his words.

“What’s wrong with my hair?” He mumbles, running his fingers through it. It was getting too long, so he couldn’t jump out of bed and claim his bed-head as a hairstyle anymore. “Whatever.” He says, slipping his jacket on. “Let’s go.”

Zayn had a motorbike that he intended to use for commuting but Niall had a car with heating, and how could he refuse that? The car was decent, and he never let anyone drive it which bugged Louis to no end, but Zayn couldn’t drive for shit so he couldn’t care less.

Louis takes back seats so he can lie down for the twelve-minute drive, Zayn makes fun of him for it but he knows that time is crucial as a doctor and if you can find a spare minute to rest, you have to grab it.

“I hope Payne lets me scrub in today,” Louis huffs out, “I would literally give my left arm to work with that man.”

“Fuckin’ legend.” Niall murmurs in agreement.

Ah yes, there it was. The one thing he hated most about his roommates. Their unwavering obsession with Doctor Payne.

While every other intern was jumping at the chance to work with him, Zayn was doing all he could to avoid the guy. They’d only spoken a handful of times since their incident, and everything was work related. There was still a god awful awkwardness surround every one of their conversations though, it made Zayn’s chest feel constricted and all he wanted to do was disappear.

“Yeah, same.” Zayn grunts half-heartedly, just so the two of them wouldn’t get on his case. There was no chance he would ever let them find out about his sexual blunder, there was no way they’d react well to it.

They do rounds as usual, and Zayn is once again perplexed by the complexity of the human body. Their patient, Nathaniel Thomas was no older than him and recently diagnosed with Lymphedema. His arms and legs were swollen to three times their size and Zayn had never seen anything like it. There was still the bustle of doctors and nurses around them and he was itching to draw the thin curtain to give the patient some privacy from prying eyes.

“If left untreated, what complications can we face Doctor Malik?” Doctor Styles asks.

He snaps out of his thoughts and clears his throat. “It can lead to tissue channels increasing in size and number; it may reduce the oxygen availability in the transport. System and interfere with wound healing and provide a breeding ground for bacteria.” He says with no hesitation, as If he was reciting the words memorised straight out the book.

“Fantastic.” Another voice joins them, as Liam – _Doctor Payne_ , swoops into their huddle of interns. “That was good, you can get ready to scrub in Malik we’re operating as soon as you prep Nathaniel for surgery.”

Zayn blinks up at him. Liam smiles and it shouldn’t be as charming as it was, but it still makes Zayn feel lightheaded. This wasn’t going to end well.

“Lucky bastard.” Louis mutters under his breath, patting his shoulder.

*

He knows he shouldn’t be feeling giddy. He was ten minutes away from having someone’s life in his hands. Okay, it wouldn’t be in his hands, but it would be in Liam’s and they would be standing close together enough for Zayn to feel responsible if something were to go wrong.

Oh, he would also be standing right next to Liam. Zayn tries to see this as a good thing, because he’s about to learn from the best neurosurgeon in the country. This was a good thing, so he doesn’t know why there was an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

Liam walks into the small room tying his surgical cap on his head.

“Hey,” Zayn says, and Liam leans forward to wash his hands. “You didn’t pick me for this surgery because of -well you know what.”

Liam straightens up and grabs some paper towels. His eyebrows are raised and he’s looking at Zayn expectantly. “No, I don’t know what.”

“You know what,” Zayn says, exasperated. “What happened that time after the-” He breaks off mid-sentence when he sees how utterly unimpressed Liam looks.

“No, Zayn. I didn’t pick you to scrub in on a life threatening surgery because I had sex with you over a month ago.” Liam says, grabbing a surgical mask. “You have a good head on your shoulders, when you’re not making ridiculous accusations.”

“I wasn’t accusing you. It was a _question_.”

“I need you at the top of your game here Malik, so clear your head before you even think about stepping into that theatre.” Liam says, his voice stern as if he was reminding him who the authority figure was. It’s not like Zayn forgot, it hard to, the way Liam walks around with his shoulders squared and confidence beaming from him.

He was skilled in a way no-one was, and there wasn’t a single person in the hospital who doubted his abilities. He swallows anxiously when it dawns on him what’s about to happen, and what he has to live up to. “Nothing to be nervous about.” Liam says with finality, before leaving the room.

Zayn collects himself quickly and grabs his mask and gloves before joining Liam in the theatre.

*

The first thing he does after the surgery in collapse on a bunk in the on-call room. Louis follows him inside and curls up on the other end of the bed.

“Come on,” he whines, “I’ve been waiting for you for four hours, spill the gory details.”

Zayn grunts into his pillow.

“What did you do?” He asks, for the fifth time since he left the surgery room and made his way here. The door opens and Niall comes in, looking almost as hopeful as Louis.

“You guys have nothing better to be doing?” Zayn snaps.

“Nope,” They both say in unison, and Niall sits on the edge of the bed.

“I passed scalpels and all other various tools to Liam while he operated.” Zayn says finally, letting out a frustrated sigh. “No guts or gore.”

He peers up and Louis is clutching a pillow to his chest, a glazed look in his eye. “That’s amazing. Four hours standing next to Doctor Payne watching him cut someone open.”

Niall looks at him with raised brows. “You’re on first name basis with the guy already?”

“Yes Niall, we’re best pals now.” He says sarcastically, “We like, use each other’s name.”

Niall rolls his eyes.

“Will you tell Payne that I have feelings for him?” Louis asks, draping his arms around Zayn. “And that if he wants to take a scalpel to my chest I’m okay with that.”

Zayn ignores him. Maybe if he pretends they’re not their they’ll disappear.

He was about to say something about making a move for home but Niall and Louis’ pagers both start beeping. They disappear instantly and Zayn savours the moment of quiet.

It lasts for three blissful minutes, then the door is pushed open again. This time it’s Liam who comes and sits down on the side of his bed. The _single_ bed, might he add, and there were about four of them he could’ve picked to sit on.

“You did good today, Malik.” Liam says, and finally his shoulders droop and he takes a long breath. He looks exhausted.

“I didn’t do anything.” He replies, trying not to sound like a grumpy child.

Liam lets out a breath of laughter. “You did _good_.”

Zayn sits up, leaning on the wall as he watches Liam run his fingers through his hair. “What’s wrong?” He asks, noting the other mans pinched brows.

“Nothing’s wrong, I just need a good night’s sleep. Maybe a few drinks.”

“Let’s go, then.” Zayn says optimistically, attempting to crawl of the bed. Liam laughs and he collapses beside him.

 “Drinking together didn’t do us much good last time.” Liam points out.

Zayn narrows his eyes, “We’re not talking about that anymore, it never happened.”

Liam looks at his with wide eye innocence. “I was talking about when you threw up on my shoes, what are _you_ talking about?”

A laugh bubbles out of his throat and he shoves Liam lightly as he gets off the bed. Liam grabs his arm at the last moment and pulls him back onto the bed.

“Did you give more thought to the dinner thing?” Liam asks, his eyes fixed on Zayn’s.

“I did.” Zayn replies. Liam perks up. “It’s still a heavy no.”

“You’re making this way more difficult than it needs to be.” Liam says, as they both stand up. Liam holds the door open for him and they both leave the room.

“No I’m not, I’m making it fairly simple.” Zayn replies. “I care about this job, thus I am not going to sleep with my boss and ruin any future prospects I may have in this field.”

They walk side by side through the hospital to the locker room. “You’re incredibly dramatic.” Liam says, then lowers his voice because they were finally around people. “Sleeping with your boss has nothing to do with your job, and hurry up people are looking at me weird.” They were in the intern part of the room, and generally you didn’t see any surgeons hanging about there.

Zayn opens his locker and grabs his sweater and jeans. “Turn around.” He says.

“You’re not being serious. Anyone that passes by can see you changing so I don’t see why I have to turn.” Liam says incredulously. “And I’ve literally seen you _naked_.”

“I was drunk, and currently we are having a civil conversation so I’m not going to take my scrubs off in front of you.” Zayn replies.

Liam rolls his eyes, “Fine, I’mgoing to get changed too. My things are in the staff faculty.” He says before he disappears out the door.

Zayn changes into the black sweatshirt and jeans he was wearing in the morning and stuffs his scrubs back into the locker. He grabs his backpack and meets Liam by the door who appears after a few minutes, now in a white t-shirt and black jacket.

He wasn’t used to seeing him dress casual, and he looked good. His jeans were slim and wrapped around his thighs almost sinfully, and Zayn tried not to think about how thin and clingy his t-shirt was.

“Anyway, a dinner date doesn’t mean we have to be sleeping together, we could take it slow.” Liam says, as they leave the building and the cold air hits them. “Start off by being friends at least.”

“We’re friends.” Zayn says.

“Really? Because every time I see you in the hallway you start walking the opposite direction.” Liam says pointedly. “And I’ve seen you jump into a linen closet to avoid seeing me on many occasions.”

“Get over yourself, that wasn’t because of you.” Zayn makes a face at him. “I need linen because my patients get cold. Have you seen the weather lately?”

Liam scoffs. “Right. Okay, let’s just get those drinks and get this over with.”

Joe’s bar was the safe haven for all the hospital employees, perfectly situated right across the road and open all hours. Liam doesn’t mention dates for the rest of the night, and they drink the beer he ordered which Zayn obviously teases him about because who under the age of thirty drinks _beer_?

“I mean, I get it, it’d be kind of inappropriate.” Liam finally says, his cup slamming onto the table. He hiccups once. “but it’s not career destroying.”

“Just drop it already, Payne.” Zayn grunts, resting his elbow in the table and downing the last of his drink.

“What’s the problem, I mean. I’m attracted to you; you’re attracted to me.” Liam mumbles, “Sounds like good fun to me.”

“I’m not attracted to you.” Zayn says, getting off his stool. His head starts spinning and he grabs Liam’s arm instantly. His arm is firm and warm and Zayn feels safe.

“Yeah, you tell yourself that.” Liam says, putting a hand on Zayn’s waist to support him. “Fucking lightweight.”

He calls louis to pick him up, who was still in the hospital so it takes all of five minutes for him to walk over to them. Liam leaves them both with a short goodbye and a nod.

“What the hell was that?” Louis asks, half laughing.

“Honestly? I think he just wants to screw me.” Zayn says. “Don’t blame the guy. I went gym last summer; you should _see_ my body.”

“Yeah alright, get in the car you twig.” Louis laughs, and Zayn complies. He feels light and happy for the first time in a while, not drunk or intoxicated, just buzzed enough to not feel anxious or rid himself with worrisome thoughts.

His serenity is short-lived because he goes home that night to an empty bed, it’s not something that’s particularly bothered him before but after spending some time with someone as incredible as Liam, he kind of wishes the other man was spread out on his bed. It was stupid, he was aware, but all he could think of now were the fragments of memories he had of Liam naked on top of him.

He remembers his hands on Zayn’s bare skin, and his lips pressed to the tattoos on his collarbone. He remembers that Liam was strong, like the muscles weren’t a giveaway, but the way he dominantly moved Zayn around like he weighed nothing had something stirring in his lower stomach.

He remembers Liam’s tongue dragging up the inside of his thigh, then higher and higher until – Zayn groans to himself until he wraps a hand around himself. Turning Liam down tonight was a bad, _bad_ idea.

*

He doesn’t mean to do it, but Liam turns into the hallway and all Zayn sees is the linen closet right beside him and without putting a seconds thought into it he pushes the door open and quickly slips inside. He breathes a sigh of relief, because Zayn really did not want to talk to him, mostly because at this point he was impossibly sexually frustrated and he didn’t know what he would do if Liam was right in front of him with his perfect lips and shoulders and-

“Cold patients again?”

Zayn jumps at the sound of Liam’s voice, as he closes the door behind him and stand there with his arms crossed over his chest. The closet was small so at this point there was less than a meter’s distance between them.

Zayn turns around and pretends to look through the blankets on the shelf with his back turned to Liam. “Yes.” He replies curtly.

“Right, so,” He feels Liam move closer to him. “What’s this patient’s name?”

Zayn doesn’t reply. He doesn’t think he could get a word out of his throat even if he wanted to. He takes one tentative step back, slowly, and relishes the moment when his back presses against Liam’s chest. His rock solid chest, he muses.

This was all the confirmation he needed apparently, because Liam raises his hand and it snakes under Zayn’s shirt, his fingers ghosting over the skin on his stomach. He drops his head into the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply.

Zayn’s knees feel weak, but somehow he manages to pull away and turns around to face the other man. Liam’s was watching him with a heavy gaze, his eyes full of want.

That’s what he convinced himself it was, before he surged forward and kissed him. It’s innocent only for a second before Liam pushes his tongue past Zayn’s lips and then there’s _teeth_ and _biting_ and he can hardly _breathe_.

Liam’s hands were all over him and his skin felt like it was burning with desire and want, but all his could do was dig his fingers into Liam’s back while he worked his way down Zayn’s neck with kisses. He stops right above his collarbone, gently biting the skin there and then soothing the redness with his tongue.

“Stop, stop,” Zayn says hurriedly, his voice suddenly raspy. “You’ll leave a mark.”

Liam peers up at him, his lips still working across his skin. He fixes Zayn with an ‘ _and what?’_ type look and Zayn stops complaining.

It’s Liam who pulls away first though, his lips now red and shiny. “So, not attracted to me huh?” He says with a smirk as his eyes flitting towards the bulge in Zayn’s pants, and then he’s gone. ~~~~

Zayn takes a few deep breaths and attempts to collect himself. There had to be somebody else in the hospital that Zayn could have his sexual ventures with; why the hell did it have to be Liam Payne. He really needed to start exploring his options before he’s _really_ not comfortable doing this with his superiors.

He walks out the closet and spots Doctor Styles manning out orders with a clipboard in his hand. _He_ was attractive, he had the whole dimples thing going on and the broad shoulders and he was insanely tall.

His gaze flits to louis next, who walks out of the men’s bathroom while wiping his wet hands on his scrubs. He was smaller, with piercing blue eyes and chestnut brown hair spiked around his head. Also attractive, Zayn mused to himself.

He realises Louis is marching up to him and tries to focus on the real-life situations on hand. “Why are you staring at me? You freak.”

“Was just thinking about whether or not you’d be a good lay.” Zayn smiles.

“What did you conclude?” Louis asks.

“Definitely not, you talk too fucking much.” Zayn retorts.

“Huh.”

*

It’s on his way home from the hospital when he decides he wants to make it a _thing_. The only thing he thinks about when Liam isn’t touching him is how desperately he wants _Liam to be touching him_. So yeah, it was going to be a thing.

Louis and Niall were sitting in front of the television when he gets home, and he shucks off his shoes and backpack and joins them.

“Hey,” Niall says with a mouth full of popcorn, “How was surgery with Styles?”

“Good, I held a heart it my hands.” Zayn replies casually, adjusting his position to lay down on the sofa. He’d been thinking about how he was going to tell them about his thing, but he figures it’ll come out when the time is right.

“Zayn’s looking for an easy lay in the hospital.” Louis tells Niall nonchalantly. “Any advice for our little adventurer?”

“Well,” Niall laughs. “I have some wisdom to share. There’s Marie, the receptionist who makes eyes at anyone with a pulse. Then there’s Brandon, the hot nurse who doesn’t look like he’s actually got a moral compass at all –”

“Yeah!” Louis shouts excitedly, “I heard he slept with a patient two hours before her operation.”

“I heard he infected half the nursing staff with syphilis last summer.”

Zayn laughs, “Great advice, I’ll just go ahead and get an STD all in the name of easy sex.”

“Then there’s Noelle, she’s sweet but you’d probably have to take her out a few times before getting any action.” Niall says.

“I don’t like this list, no nurses. I’m too much of an intellectual for that.” Zayn says, only partly joking.

“Zayn only interacts with top tier doctors,” Louis says haughtily, “It’s Doctor Liam Payne or no-one.”

Zayn freezes for a second, his chest feeling heavy and it’s only until he sees the other two laughing at him he realises Louis was only joking. If his jokes were going to have him feeling this guilty, he really should tell them sooner rather than later.

“Fuck of Louis, you’re just salty because I said I wouldn’t do you,” Zayn grumbles. He really hates his friends.

“Hey! What about me?” Niall asks, looking way too enthusiastic for the answer.

“You know I’d do you anywhere Niall, in the kitchen, on the floor, you name it.” Zayn replies easily, and there shouldn’t be this fondness in his chest when he watches the two boys laugh loudly, with their head tipped back and every tension from the day dissipating from their face. But there was, grinning like a fool at his friends as they threw popcorn at him with their care-free laughter floating around the room.

*

When your current love interest was a renowned neurosurgeon, it made the whole romancing part of a relationship that much harder. Not that Liam was Zayn’s love interest, or that he was trying to romance him, or even that they were in any form of a relation. Certainly not.

The difficulty of it all, came from how busy the other doctor was. If he wasn’t in a surgery, then he was catching a few hours of sleep or doing whatever it was specialised surgeons did in their spare time.

The entire morning Zayn had a ball of anxiety sitting low in his stomach that he just couldn’t shake off, and the longer it took for him to get hold of Liam the more persistent it got.

 He’s shaken out of his thoughts when he feels a set of nimble fingers wrap around his forearm, and turns to see Eleanor, another one of the interns in his group.

“Found him yet?” She asks, pulling him along the hallway by the arm.

“No,” He shakes his head, and she tuts.

“What’d you need him for, anyway?” She asks, quirking one brow. “There’s a dozen other doctors you could talk to.”

Zayn scrunches his brows at her. “I know that. He just asked me to do some work for him and I need to get back to him.”

“Back to who?” Another voice joins them, and Louis comes into view as he slides from behind and slings an arm around Eleanor’s shoulders. “How’s my favourite rookie doctor today?” He asks her.

She frowns and removes his arm from her. “I’ve operated on a heart. I don’t associate with interns who haven’t gotten that far yet.”

Louis narrows his eyes, “You just got lucky that time, interns are never allowed to do shit like that.” He says spitefully, “It was a one off.”

The two brunettes continue bickering, throwing insults back and forth and Zayn drowns them out as soon as he spots a familiar frame leaving a scrub room. He gives Louis and Eleanor a half-assed dismissive wave before walking up to Liam. His nerves seem to increase by a tenfold but he swallows it down and places his hand on the wall, effectively stopping Liam from walking past him.

“Zayn, hey.” He smiles pleasantly, his eyes shining.

“I have a free house tonight, so if you want to come over, you can.” He says, and before the other man can reply Zayn walks past him. He lets out a deep breath and smiles to himself. He was working himself up all day for the one sentence, but somehow it was still a feat. Now he just had to worry about whether or not Liam would show up. 

*

Zayn’s last surgery of the day takes much longer than he anticipated, and it was almost midnight when he gets home. He’s out of breath from his speed-walking home (Louis, the prick, took the car home hours before) and he fumbles with his keys as he tries to open the door. He gave up on the idea of getting home in time to wait for Liam about half an hour ago, there was no way the other man would come over this late at night, it just wasn’t like him.

When he opens the door, he doesn’t expect to see Niall and Liam sitting on the sofa, a bag of sweets between them and Louis walking over to them with a glass of wine in his hand. All three of them turn to look at him simultaneously when they hear the sound of the door, and Zayn doesn’t know which one of their expressions to look at.

Liam is smiling sheepishly, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. Louis is grinning, beckoning Zayn over, and Niall just looks thrilled to be in close proximity with Liam.

“Liam came over to give you some papers,” Louis says, his voice loud. He was definitely tipsy by now. “So we invited him in, hope that’s cool.”

Liam perks up and grabs a file containing a wad of papers from his bag, “Right, yes, these are for you.” He says, handing it over to him. Their hands brush when he takes the file, and Liam locks his eyes with Zayn’s for a moment. He swallows and discards the file on the coffee table, turning away from him.

Liam was incredibly adorable when he was lying for him, there was a flush in his cheeks and a nervous smile on his face; Zayn was also incredibly eager to get them out the living room and into his bedroom.

“Could you show me the way to the bathroom?” Liam pipes up, and Zayn quickly takes lead.

“Sure, follow me.” He says, trying the hide the relief in his voice. Liam stands up and straightens his sweater, and follows Zayn as he heads for the stairs.

He walks past the bathroom and swings open the door to his bedroom, letting Liam go in first. He closes the door behind them quickly and turns to Liam, who was already taking his sweater off. “What the hell took you so long? I’ve been here for two fucking hours.” He says, clearly annoyed, if the pinch in his brows was anything to go by.

“No time for chit-chat,” Zayn hums, taking off his t-shirt from the back of his neck in one swift movement, “Only _doing_.” He guides Liam to his bed who stumbles whilst attempting to take his jeans off. By the time Liam is on his lying back in bed, they’re both almost naked.

Zayn straddles Liam, leaning forwards and leaving a trail of kisses down his jaw, (that didn’t feel very casual to him, and Liam didn’t tell him to stop) and then moves down to his throat, biting into his skin hard enough to leave a mark.

Liam lets out a sharp breath as Zayn’s mouth moves down to his chest, his tongue grazing of Liam’s nipple. His hips buck upwards but Zayn keeps him held down. He moves lower now, prying Liam’s legs open and situating himself between his thighs. He drags his tongue across the skin right above the waistband of Liam’s boxers, smirking t the keening noises the other man makes.

“Zayn, please.” He whines. “No teasing.”

“M’not teasin’” He mumbles, as he moves he drags his fingers down the inside of Liam’s thighs, leaving a red mark in its wake. He replaces his fingers with his tongue, biting down gently, he admires how taut Liam’s thighs were, yet still so soft.

He jumps a little when he realises Liam is moving his hands down to his crotch and palming himself through his boxers. Zayn swats his hand away, ignoring the way the arousal pooling at the bottom of his stomach starts demanding attention

“ _That_ is for another time.” He chides. Liam let’s out another noise from the back of his throat.

“Hurry up.” He scolds.

“With what, babe?” Zayn peers up at him through his lashes.

Liam just groans. “I’m not going to beg for it.”

If they had more time in their hands, Zayn would definitely test that one out, drag it out as long as he could until Liam was writhing on his bed, begging for it. As it was, they were on a timely schedule.

He pulls Liam’s boxers down, and he doesn’t miss the breath of relief from the other man. Zayn lowers his face, with each hand gripping Liam’s thighs, and takes his dick into his mouth.

Liam lets out a quiet and low moan. Zayn smirks, dragging his tongue upside his shaft. Liam squirms impatiently, until Zayn swirls his tongue around his head and stars sucking.

He pulls away after a while and Liam’s breathing comes out in short pants. “Alright, your times up.” He says gruffly, before he pushes himself up and flips Zayn over.

Being manhandled by Liam wasn’t his favourite thing in the world, but it was his favourite thing in the world.

“You’re good, yeah?” He asks, as he slides Zayn’s boxers off.

He nods rapidly, motioning at Liam to get on with it. That he does, not waiting another minute before adjusting himself and slowly pushing himself inside of Zayn.

He lets out a sharp breath, despite the amount of times they’ve done this, Zayn still wasn’t used to the feeling of being filled up by him. It was exhilarating in all the best ways, and he never wanted it to end.

Liam keeps a steady rhythm, letting out the occasionally grunt or moan, biting down on Zayn’s shoulder. He puts his hand on Liam’s back, pulling his nails down his back roughly every time Liam had their bodies pressed together.

Liam finishes them both quickly, as if realising they were definitely taking their sweet time. He pulls out of Zayn and groans as he collapses on the bed and fluttering his eyes closed.

Zayn is too dazed to comment on it, but several moments later when he comes back to his senses, he turns to Liam. “You had better not be asleep right now.” He mumbles, fighting to stay awake himself.

Liam just whines in response.

“Oh my god.” Zayn groans, slowly pulling himself away from the bed. He grabs a pair of sweatpants and pulls them on, and he feels sweaty and sticky, but he deals with it. “I’ll just go and save our asses.”

He walks down the stairs (slowly, his thighs were _aching_ ) and opens the front door for a second, ten closing it. Niall and Louis both had their backs to him, and they don’t turn to look. “Liam had to leave.” He says, and both the boys mumble some response, too engrossed in the video game they were playing.

That was easier than he’d expected. He just sighs and turn back around to head up to his room. Liam was now fast asleep, the bedsheets skewed around his waist. Zayn smiles fondly, and grabs some fresh clothes so he could shower before sleeping. Before he gets in, he dampens a bit of tissues and wipes Liam’s stomach, cleaning him up a little.

(That didn’t feel all too casual either.)

 

*

Zayn doesn’t need an alarm for him to wake up before the sun’s risen, the fine-print in his job description apparently said he needed to sell his soul to become a successful doctor. That meant his body would automatically wake up while it was still dark outside and he had no say in the matter.

Before he started medical school, Zayn was notorious for sleeping through the morning and into mid-day during the weekends; now he’d be lucky to get more than four hours. He stares at the ceiling for a while, before deciding to remove the heavy weight of Liam’s arm from his chest and giving him a light shove.

“Wake up,” He murmurs, “You gotta get out before the other’s wake up.”

Liam grunts in response and puts his arm back onto Zayn. “Shower first.”

“Seriously? Hurry up, the others will be up in another ten minutes.” He groans, pushing the covers off both of them. “Be _discreet_ , okay?”

Liam mutters something under his breath that sounded a lot like “Fucking _interns_ ” before he grabs a discarded towel from a chair and stumbles off to the bathroom. Zayn climbs out of his bed and slips into a pair of sweatpants before making his way downstairs.

He found that the most efficient breakfast was cereal because it took all of thirty seconds to conjure up and he didn’t have the time to fry eggs or anything too frivolous. Zayn sighs as he flicks the kettle on, wondering when his life became so tedious that making eggs for breakfast was too elaborate and time consuming.

He hears a set of footsteps walking down the stairs and jumps a little when louis enters the kitchen. He looks less tired than Zayn, probably because he was actually sleeping last night and Zayn relaxes a little because he was too calm to have bumped into Liam upstairs.

Zayn slides Louis a coffee, who hums appreciatively. “There’s a naked neurosurgeon in our shower, you know.” He says into his mug, peering up at Zayn with critical eyes.

Zayn chokes on his coffee and just then, Niall joins them in the kitchen. “You too?” Louis asks the blonde.

“Yeah man, way too early to be seeing Payne’s cock up close and personal.” Niall sighs, grabbing a box of cereal. “But I’m glad I did, you know? I’m glad.”

Zayn narrows his eyes at them. They were far too fatigued to have a real reaction to their guest, but he’s _glad_. This way he didn’t have to explicitly tell them, but the weight on his chest had still been lifted. And they were taking it well; that was a relief.

“Yes, nice penis.” He hears Louis mumble under his breath.

“Back off, it’s mine.” Zayn says, and he’s surprised at himself because he was only partly joking.

“Ours, now.” Louis says, patting his back. “We’re a team.”

Zayn scowls at him and grabs his coffee cup and heads back to his room. Liam was browsing through his wardrobe, dripping wet with a towel around his waist. He quickly pushes back any inappropriate thoughts and walks over to him.

“I do vaguely remember telling you to be discreet, Payne.” Zayn says, “Why have all my roommates seen you naked?”

“I don’t know, but they both screamed.” Liam supplies. “You’re all incredibly dramatic.” He turns to look at Zayn then, “It doesn’t matter if your friends know about this. They’re your friends.”

“I know that.” Zayn snaps, then he takes a deep breath. “Sorry, I know that. It’s okay, they’re okay with it.”

Liam nods and turns back to the wardrobe. “None of your clothes will fit me.” He muses.

“What? Yes, they will.” He says, grabbing a navy blue sweatshirt from his wardrobe. “This will fit.”

Liam lips quirk up in amusement, as he lifts his hands up to grab Zayn’s shoulder. “No offense, but you’re tiny.” He laughs and swipes the shirt from Zayn’s hands.

“Hey!” Zayn protests. “I am not.”

The sweatshirt does fit Liam, quite nicely in fact, and Zayn let’s out an annoyed huff because how does he look better in Zayn’s clothes than him? “See? Now who’s dramatic? Fit’s you just fine, you’re not as muscular as you think you are.” He says. “Ass.”

 “I didn’t say anything about muscles,” Liam laughs, “clearly I’m not the one here that thinks I’m muscular.”

“Whatever, I need to get ready,” Zayn huffs out, as he grabs his clothes and heads for the bathroom. He catches his reflection in the bathroom mirror and he almost doesn’t recognize this version of himself, his eyes are bright and his cheeks tinted with a soft pink, and his lips quirked up into a fond smile. He realises it then, that things have changed. All it took was a few months and him taking a liking a certain Liam Payne for him to just be happier.

He feels weightless, elated even, at this revelation. He really like Liam, and he loved the change he brought in Zayn. This was something he could get used to.

*

Zayn’s observed surgeries before. From the bedside, standing right beside the surgeon, or from the gallery that loomed over the operating theatre. He’s stitched people up, he’s pierced people with needles the length of his arm, he’s assisted in removing kidney’s from patient’s bodies, so his reaction at the operating table comes as a surprise. it comes as surprise to everyone in the room, but mostly to himself.

He was thrilled when he was asked to scrub in on a liver resection, he’d never seen one done up close before and he up close and experience like this was essential. He was hovering over the table with Dr. Styles and Dr. Edwards, and a few other nurses surrounding them as they injected their patient with anaesthesia.

“Doctor Malik, can you tell me what is essential in this procedure to avoid taking the patient through blood product transfusion.” Dr. Styles asks.

“Yes Sir, Preoperative preparation, intraoperative cell salvage, and acute normovolemic hemodilution are essential.” Zayn recites. He did do his intensive research before stepping into the operating room.

“Fantastic.” Dr. Styles says, and Zayn can’t quite tell but he thinks Styles was smiling under his surgical mask. “Here, open him up for us.” He says, leaning over slightly and passing him a scalpel.

He gulps a little, not that there was any reason to. It was a simple task, just one easy slice across the guy’s abdomen. He’d done this before (on dummies, but still, he’d _done_ it).  

Zayn was one of the most talented interns in the hospital, he was good at what he did, which is why it made no sense to anyone that when he was standing over his patient with a scalpel just inches away from his skin, he choked. He couldn’t _move_.

“Doctor Malik, take it nice and slowly.” Doctor Styles voice was calming, but he picked up on the hint of urgency.

The lights in the room were suddenly too bright, too blue for him to focus. He looks at his hands in front of him, they were trembling and he felt as if he didn’t have any control over them. All he had to do was inch his hand a little closer to the body and press the scalpel down firmly, (“use a light hand, always” he remembers, being told over and over again).

Focus, _focus_.

He could feel the sweat building u on his forehead, and he felt like his heart was sitting in his throat. Pounding, clawing it’s way upwards. He worked for this, he spent days and nights working for this and when the time was he to put his skills to the test, he just couldn’t do it.

“Doctor Edwards, take over please.” Dr. Styles says calmly, and the other doctor slides over to where Zayn was and takes the scalpel from his hands, seeming utterly unimpressed with the intern.

Doctor Styles’ eyes were piercing him and he took a few steps backwards from the almost claustrophobic huddle of doctors and nurses. He turns then and looks up, to the gallery. It was a small room that was perched on top of the operating theatre with a glass wall so staff could sit and observe any surgeries.

There were a couple of eyes watching him, but mostly people had turned their attention back to the table, were the real doctors were, the ones who could do their jobs properly.

He sees Louis stand up from the gallery seats from the corner of his eyes just as he’s leaving the theatre, and cool air relieves some of the tension but he still feels sick.

“What the hell happened in there?” Louis demands, as soon as he climbs down the stairs and meets Zayn in the scrub room.

He peels off his gloves and removes his surgical mask, disposing of them in the bin. “Fuck.” He chokes out. “I need to get out of here – I need to be-”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Louis says, putting his hand on his shoulder. “C’mon let’s go.” He leads them out of the scrub room and into the hallway.

“I fucked up.” He groans quietly as he runs his hands through his hair, frustrated. He was never going to live this down, he was always going to be known as that one cowardly intern who couldn’t even open up a patient.

“You didn’t, it was just one time.” Louis says, “Happens to the best of us.”

Zayn narrows his eyes at him, as if to say yeah, sure it does. Interns would be ecstatic they were given the opportunity to scrub in on a surgery like that, and there Zayn was, screwing up a vital piece of experience he so badly needed.

“I just need some time alone, yeah?” He says, his voice hollow. He gives Louis a half-hearted pat on the back before turning his back and walking to the on-call room. The room was empty, thankfully, so Zayn took the corner bed and lied down.

He was staring at the bunk on top of him for about thirty minutes, he thinks, just clearing his head and trying to wrap his head what had happened. If he was a rational thinker, he would’ve forgiven himself for screwing up by now, but Zayn wasn’t blessed with that type of thinking. He’s just accepting the fact that he’s failure of a doctor and wasted a large portion of his life in medical school.

A few interns attempt to come into the room whilst he was laying there feeling sorry for himself, but Zayn just leans upwards and tells them to “fuck right off”. He’s not usually this horrible, but he lets himself have this one thing.

The door opens again and he’s ready to hurl abuse at whichever poor person is unfortunate enough to walk through the door though. He doesn’t though, because its Liam, so he just huffs and flops back onto the bed.

Liam doesn’t say anything, just quietly takes a seat on the edge of the bed. He puts a hand on Zayn’s knee, his fingers gently massaging circles on his thigh.

“So.” He starts. “What happened?”

Zayn just groans and rolls over so his back is facing Liam. “How do you already know? The surgery isn’t even over yet.”

“I spoke to Louis.” He replies. “Tell me. What happened?”

“I’m a pathetic excuse for a doctor is what happened.” Zayn grunts, “Now leave me alone.”

“I’m speaking to you as your Intending, now.” Liam says, his voice less kind. “So watch your tone.”

Zayn sits up, a sudden flare of anger inside him. “You’re telling me to watch my tone?” He scoffs. “Leave me. The fuck _alone_.” Truthfully, he expects Liam to show some sort of hurt, but there’s nothing. His expression remains neutral, his eyes now sympathetic. He doesn’t want sympathy. He doesn’t know what he wants except he doesn’t want to be around Liam when he’s this angry at himself, because Zayn will just let it out on him and it’s not what the other man deserves.

“You can act like an ass all you want, Zayn. It isn’t going to change the fact that you let your nerves get the best of you.” Liam says. “And it’s okay. It’s normal, it happens. But your resident – Harry, yeah? He’ll give you shit for it for a while, and you’re going to have to prove that you deserve to stay in the program until next year.”

“I don’t.” Zayn replies automatically. “I don’t deserve to stay.”

Liam smiles this time, and Zayn relaxes because he doesn’t look like he’s talking as his Intending now. “It’s refreshing to see interns get all worked up over little mistakes.” He says, “You’ll do worse things as time progresses. Patients will die at your hand and you won’t even remember the first time you thought the world was ending because you messed up. This is _nothing_.”

Zayn blinks at him. “Was that – was that supposed to make me feel better?”

Liam chuckles and stands up, “Not really. Just. Put this into perspective, yeah?” He says. “And learn from it. Never walk out of a surgery without having learnt something. About medicine, about yourself, anything.”

Zayn nods. “Yeah, Okay.” He mumbles. “Thanks, I think.”

Liam’s about to make a move to leave the room but he hesitates for a seconds, “You still up for tonight?”

Zayn snorts. “I’m up for right _now_.”

Liam leans bends forward to where Zayn was perched on the bed and presses his lips to his gently. He kisses him confidently, but pulls away only a moment later and lets his lips hover over his jaw. “Not a chance.” He mumbles against Zayn’s skin, before pulling away and standing up.

Zayn scrunches his brows, “Don’t expect my door to be open for you next time!” He calls out as Liam swings the door open and leaves, throwing one last grin over his shoulder.

This isn’t exactly how he expected to recover from this, but he feels better. Somehow, Liam’s reminder that this was just the start of the many mistakes that were to come relaxed him. It was enough for now.

*

It’s a week later when he’s reminded of why he wanted to keep his _thing_ with Liam on the down-low. He’s in the kitchen preparing microwave macaroni cheese for himself, and Niall and Louis were eating whatever they managed to microwave for themselves at the island in the middle of the kitchen. They were discussing an upcoming surgery that everyone was buzzed about, because they were going to pick an intern to scrub in.

“Payne will probably choose Zayn.” Louis says with a mouthful of food. Zayn looks up sharply. “So we gotta try and impress the other surgeons.”

“And he’s going to choose me because?” He asks in a clipped tone.

“’Cos he’s banging you, obviously.” He replies, rolling his eyes. Zayn turns to look at Niall, who just shrugs his shoulders. “You’ve got an advantage over the rest of. ‘S why you get all the good surgeries”

Zayn’s fists clench under the table, no way in hell was he about to have all his hard work discredited. “The only reason why I have an advantage over you.” He says angrily, “Is because I’m the only one of us who can do a parallel pulley stich!”

“No one’s saying you’re not good at what you do.” Louis says, keeping his tone levelled. “But you can’t act like you’ve not got an upper hand, dude.”

“I _don’t_. All the surgeries I get into are earned, because I work hard. I’ve slept four hours in the last two days preparing for the surgery I had this morning, I haven’t eating something out of a microwave in a week, and you think it’s because of _Liam_?” Zayn says, furious now. He was so _exhausted_ , and this is the last conversation he wanted to be having. He was just one more snide comment away from angry-crying. And he was _not_ going to cry in front of them. “Liam is too intelligent to not choose his interns carefully, not that I’m ever in his surgeries anyway. Because if you’ve been paying any attention at all, I’m not specialising in neurology!”

He doesn’t wait for a response or a reaction, just grabs his food and storms out of the kitchen. He curls up onto his bed, trying to control the burning anger in his chest. The thing is, he thinks he’s more _hurt_ than angry. Louis and Niall were his closest friends here, and this is what they thought of him. That he was just sleeping with whoever necessary to get to the top.

All his efforts went by unrecognized by them. He was working day and night, working himself down to the bone and they didn’t give a shit. Well, screw them. He didn’t need to prove himself to anyone.

He falls asleep like that, feeling sorry for himself and head clouded with frustration.

*

Zayn was prepared to have a shitty day from the moment he wakes up. His head feels heavy and somehow his argument from last night is at the forefront of his mind.

He stalks down to the kitchen for some coffee, and on the way down the stairs he’s me with the smell of something sweet. Like warm desserts and syrup. He doesn’t expect to walk into the kitchen to see Louis at the stove, and Niall mixing creamy batter in a bowl.

There’s a pile of pancakes at the island table, and Zayn suddenly feels all warm and soft inside. “Mornin’ Zayn.” Niall says, all his concentration fixed on the bowl in front of him. Zayn smiles.

He goes to pick up a pancake hen Louis quickly intercepts. “Hey, hey.” He says, grabbing it and putting in on a plate. “With cream.” He says, emphasising it by shaking the tin in front of his face, before spraying a large blob on the side of his plate.

“They’re blueberry.” Zayn notes, his favourite. Louis nods happily, his fringe bouncing above his eyes. He sits down on the stool and forks a large bite in his mouth. “Oh my god, these are perfect.” He moans.

“I’m making chocolate ones, too.” Niall says, proudly.

Louis passes him a coffee too, and there’s no apology said, but it’s there. He feels his muscle relax as he takes a sip of his drink, today probably wasn’t going to be so bad.

*

Zayn spends a lot more time with Liam, he’s over at his house almost every night. And it wasn’t always sexual, sometimes they just kick back and watch a movie and eat takeaway. They weren’t boyfriends, but they hadn’t gotten as far as defining what they had yet.

It wasn’t something that was bothering him, per say, but it was still something he wanted to talk about.

His timing wasn’t perfect, because they were in a perfect mood, that state between sleeping and consciousness in the early hours of the morning. Liam mad an upset sound when the alarm started ringing again, trying to blindly hit it shut with his eyes closed.

Zayn rolled his eyes and did it for him. “Come on Liam, we’ve been late two times this week.” He says, patting the other man gently on his cheek. “And its only Wednesday.”

“We’ve plenty of time.” He grumbles, pulling the covers over his face.

“You wouldn’t be this tired if you had just slept last night,” He scolds. “You’re a freaking sex addict, has anyone told you?”

He hears Liam giggling under the sheets, no remorse in his voice.

“We should go out.” Zayn blurts, out of nowhere, just as he pulls the covers away from Liam’s face. “Like, on a date.” He watches as the smile on his face falters slightly, and Zayn is quick to backtrack. “Or not, stupid idea. Forget I said anything.” He runs his fingers through his hair self-consciously, standing up from the bed.

Liam’s fingers encircle around his wrist and pulls him down gently. He sits up now, his bare chest exposed. Zayn glances away.

“I would love to, I really would.” Liam says, a frown on his face.

“But...?” Zayn raises his brows.

“I can’t. Just yet.” Liam says. “I need to just. Sort a few things out. Then I can focus on us properly.”

He doesn’t push about what things he has to sort out, figures he’d find out if it was important. He just nods, leans forward and presses a kiss to Liam’s cheek, and gets up from the bed. “And now we _are_ getting late.” He points out, before closing the bathroom door between them.

*

“What things does he need to sort of out?”” Louis asks, walking in circles in the living room. “How fucking shady. I feel like he has a behind the scenes business, like, he sells limbs on the black market. He has access to a lot of limbs.”

Zayn groans. “Can you just shut up. Why do I ever share things with you?”

“He has a kid.” Niall points on nonchalantly. “I’ve felt this weird vibe from him since the beginning, a father vibe.”

Zayn stares at him blankly.

Louis hums appreciatively. “I could definitely see him having a kid. I can’t believe there’s a little Liam Payne running around somewhere and we didn’t even know about it.”

“There’s no kid.” Zayn snaps. “And no illegal business. He’s obviously not in that place in his life where he can be dating right now.”

“Yeah. ‘Cos he has a kid to take care of.” Niall points out solemnly.

Zayn throws a cushion at him.

 

Later that night, when he was trying to sleep, he hears his bedroom open. Niall and Louis crawl into his bed, on either side of him. They stare at the ceiling quietly for a while.

“It’s not like I’m in love with him.” Zayn says.

Niall hums in agreement.

“Who cares if he has a kid, I’m great with children.”

Louis hums.

“I’m not in _love_ with him.” He says, with more conviction this time.

*

He can’t decide if he hates slow days, or loves them. There’s no people dying, the ER’s are pretty much a ghost town, and there’s only several people in the clinic. He had to do a rectal exam today and that pretty much dampened the tone for the evening. The only plus side was that he got to spend quite while in the break room with Liam.

“What’re you so happy for?” Eleanor grumbles, “Did you just come out of the on-call room? Again?”

Zayn nods wistfully, and Eleanor scowls at him.

“Getting good head in the middle of a shift is therapeutic, ‘m telling you El.” Zayn hums happily, “I’m on cloud nine right now, even though I was examining stool this morning.”

“Are you and Liam exclusive? He’s far too attractive for you to be keeping him all to yourself.” Eleanor complains.

Zayn’s mind stumbles a bit, just for a second, because this was yet another thing that went undiscussed. They weren’t dating, it was just casual sex that maybe sometimes led to intimate night-time conversations and fond kisses and long bubble baths together.

“We’re not exclusive.” He shrugs, his voice sounding almost robotic.

“What? No way.” Eleanor says disbelievingly. “With the way he looks at you, you’d think the guy was in love with you.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “He probably shouldn’t be the only person I’m seeing right? I mean, it’s just getting weird at this point.”

Eleanor wiggles her brows at him. “Want to get frisky in the on-call room?”

He makes a face and shoves her playfully, “I was thinking Dr. Edwards, she’s fit.”

“Don’t even go there, I so bagged that one before you- “

She stops in her tracks when they both see Doctor Styles walking up to them briskly. “Is there a reason you’re here gossiping and not in the clinic?” He asks in a clipped tone. He turns to look at Zayn pointedly. “God knows you could use all the scalpel practice there is.”

He frowns and Eleanor giggles. Dr. Styles glares at her and he shuts up.

*

He spends a lot of time thinking over the next week. He’s not going to see other people, because even though Liam and himself aren’t official, he still likes him and awful lot. He wasn’t going to ruin that. Liam would sort out whatever it was that was bothering him, and then they would date properly. It’s what he was promised.

They were currently in a patient’s room, who was still unconscious after an operation when Liam’s phone starts ringing again. It would have been normal, Liam would ignore whoever as calling him because he was at work and it was the professional thing to do, and move on with his day.

This time, Liam pulls the phone out of his pocket, and his jaw clenches at whoever’s name was on the caller ID. He looks angry, like real genuinely furious in a way that Zayn had never seen before. The hand that wasn’t holding the phone was clenched into a tight fist, and his other hand was pretty much the same and Zayn was certain the phone in his fist was going to break.

“Hey,” Zayn says tentatively, “You alright?”

“fine.” Liam snaps, his cheeks flushed with anger. He leaves the room, and Zayn does try to follow him. He was confused and worried all at once, who could be eliciting such a reaction out of him? And why didn’t he share it with Zayn?

He ignores it for the rest of the day, just opts to stay out of Liam’s way until waver was bothering him blows over. It doesn’t work for too long, only after a few hours Liam catches him in the corridor.

He stops Zayn and puts on hand on the small of his back, and it slid from there to his waist as Liam adjusted his positioning to stand in front of him. “Hey,” Liam mumbles softly. “Sorry about earlier.”

“You don’t have to apologise; you didn’t do anything wrong.” Zayn shrugs nonchalantly. On the inside however, he was positively radiating, Liam thought Zayn was important enough in his life to owe an apology to after a little show of temper. That definitely meant something, he _meant_ something to Liam.

“I just –“ He cuts off with a frustrated sigh. “Just have some family things I have to sort out.”

Zayn nods, lifting his arm and gently rubbing Liam’s forearm. “Don’t worry about it Li, take your time.” He says reassuringly, “I’m here.”

Liam smiles wryly, and leans forward so that their lips are brushing. He kisses him softly, just for a second, before pulling back and walking past him, his hands lingering on Zayn’s waist for just a beat too long.

He flushes in embarrassment, because they were in the middle of the hallway and anyone could have seen that. The chief, his intending (he thinks Dr. Styles would be less than appressed at Liam’s public display of affection) but when he glances around he just sees Eleanor watching him from a few meters away.

“Not exclusive, huh?” She smirks teasingly.

*

He shouldn’t be radiating all this happiness, because Liam is obviously going through something he doesn’t want to share. But he can’t help it, he’s elated. Everything about Liam was perfect, he was every Zayn needed and wanted and he was allowed to be happy about it.

They just seemed to click instantly, in a way he’s not done with anyone before, and it was a wildly different experience and he was absolutely loving it.

He changes out of his scrubs that day, into a black hoodie and jeans and throwing on a beanie to protect himself from the bitter cold outside. He was looking forward to seeing Liam again that night, they decided on watching some old 80’s movie tonight, which was what Liam was currently obsessed about. (“80’s gangster movies Zayn, you’ll _love_ them.” He had said excitedly, and Zayn didn’t turn him down even though he was most definitely _not_ going to love it.)

He walks out of the hospital, and the wind bites at his skin, and he’s taken aback when he seems Liam standing several meters’ way from the entrance. There’s a woman next to him, tall and beautiful, and Zayn wonders who she could be.

Liam’s expression is pinched, but the woman seems like she’s having a pleasant conversation. Liam notices him first, and his eyes are glued to Zayn, then Liam’s acquaintance turns to look at him.

They’re both staring at him, ads he makes the walks over to them. He tugs at his hat self-consciously and the seemingly never ending walk finishes and Liam forces a tight smile.

“Hey.” Zayn says nervously.

Liam just nods, instead of saying anything.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Sophia Smith.” The lady smiles, but her eyes looking anything but pleasant now. “You must be the intern who’s screwing my husband.”


	2. Part 2

He doesn’t respond, just glances at Liam for some sort clarification. She was obviously just messing with him, the older doctors loved messing with interns. He’d learnt not to take it to heart quite a while ago. He meet’s Liam’s eyes for a second, before the other man glances away, his gaze fixed to the floor.

“Liam?” Zayn asks, his voice feeling scratchy. This was just a _joke_.

“You should go, please.” Liam says and Zayn’s mind is spinning. No – no _way_ was he being serious right now. He thinks his body is in auto-pilot now, because he doesn’t remember making the conscious decision to get away from their but somehow his legs are moving and he’s pushing past Liam and he’s walking.

His mind is numb. And _blank_. His chest aches, but he can hardly process the feeling because his hands are trembling inside his pocket which was less to do with the cold and more to do with the sudden emptiness inside him.

He doesn’t think he’s crying; he doesn’t feel anything wet on his face but his mind somehow felt like it was in flames now. He’s gets home and he doesn’t remember anything form the journey, he just removes the house key and it takes a couple of tries to get it in because of is shaking hands. He manages though, and twists the key.

He hears the laughter from inside and the first thing he sees is Niall angling upside down from the sofa, and Louis trying to throw cheese balls into his open mouth.

They both turn to look at him, and their smiles falter. He must look like shit, or maybe just an idiot, standing by the door frozen in place.

Niall straightens himself and furrows his brows, about to say something.

“You were right.” Zayn says. His voice sounds hollow, and the laugh that follows is bitter and scratchy. “He was hiding something. No little Liam Payne though. Just a Mrs Liam Payne.”

Louis and Niall turn to look at each other, their eyes wide and mouths ajar. Zayn doesn’t wait for a reaction, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t give a _fuck_. About them, about Liam, or about his wife that looks like she just stepped out of a magazine.

He turns arounds and heads up the stairs, he hears Louis say “Zayn, come on, it’s probably just a misunderstanding.”

He takes his clothes off first, his limbs feel heavy and his movements stiff. He climbs under his bedcovers and curls up. He doesn’t cry, just focuses on breathing for a while. 

They weren’t dating and this was not a break up, he has no reason to feel this torn. Shitty people exist, sometimes people get married and they don’t stay faithful, that’s just how it _was_. And as much as he wanted to convince himself that Liam was not one of those people, he just couldn’t deny the facts.

His chest was still aching with an indescribable sadness that he just couldn’t control, despite all the rationalising his was doing, trying to convince himself that this was an okay situation. Liam wasn’t his boyfriend; he didn’t owe Zayn a damn thing. Not his loyalty, not the truth, not a _single_ damn thing.

Louis wander into his room after a while, looking apprehensive as he passed Zayn a spoon and tub of ice-cream.

Zayn snorts, shifting his covers away from his face a bit, “Think I need something a bit stronger than that, mate.”

Niall traipses in then, “Thought you might say that.” He says, waving two bottles of vodka at him. Zayn grabs them and uncaps the first one, taking a gulp.

Louis winces. “Seriously? Straight vodka?”

Zayn shrugs, and takes the ice-cream into his lap. “Thanks for the care package, I’m good guys.” He says, waving them off.

“Those two bottles are for all of us.” Niall grumbles.

“What do you need ‘em for?” He says with a mouthful of ice-cream. “You didn’t just find out you were a dirty mistress. Only one home wrecker here.”

Niall and Louis both sigh, looking defeated. “Don’t be stupid, you’re not any of those things. You didn’t know.”

“I should’ve found out. I knew he was keeping something but I just didn’t care.” He said. “It’s my fault.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about this,” Louis says, “There’s no way this isn’t a misunderstanding.”

Zayn scoffs. His wife was standing right in front of him. “Right, Yeah. Could we just. _Not_ talk about this?”

They realise there’s no comforting Zayn after he takes another swig of the drink, so they bid their goodnight’s and tell him to be careful, before going to their own bedrooms.

He’s not really sure where the time goes after that, he drinks some more and he thinks he dozed off for an hour or two, before he’s back with a bottle in his hand. It was kind of nice, not feeling anything for a while, he’d much rather prefer this than actually dealing with his problems.

He’s completely aware about how pathetic he was; he was crying over the breakup over a causal relationship. He wasn’t even the victim here, it was Liam’s wife, who he cheated on. God, why was Zayn so stupid? It was as if he got one nice thing in is life, then the universe would realise that oh wait, Zayn is supposed to remain a lonely miserable prick for the rest of his life, let’s take that nice thing away.

He decides then, that he’s just ungrateful. He has nice things. He’s learning at the best medical program in the country, he has Louis and Niall and Eleanor, a large roof over his head and enough money to get him by. He was ungrateful, because the only thing he really wanted was Liam, maybe dozed off in his bed, or showering in his bathroom first thing in the morning, or making his breakfast before they went to work together.

He doesn’t get that though, because Zayn Malik does not get nice things. He gets to be part of an adulterous affair, and that’s it, really.

He wants to know the time, but his head was spinning and his vision was out of focus because he was so completely off his ass. He tries to focus his eyes on the clock, concentrating as hard as he could, but he just couldn’t understand what the numbers were trying to tell him. He was so going to get late for work, because that was definitely the sun coming up.

“Zayn, what the fuck.” He hears someone hiss, as a hand is wrapped around his bare forearm. “Have you been up this entire time?” He sees tuft of blonde hair. Niall. Niall, so sweet and caring. “You fucking idiot.”

“I love you, Niall, I really do.” Zayn says, but it comes out as garbled nonsense, he thinks, because Niall frowns, looking completely unimpressed. Zayn snatches his arm away quickly, as soon as he feels a wave of nausea pass through him and runs to the toilet.

He thinks he’s pretty much vomited out everything that was stored inside him, his throat feels raw and his mouth tastes like shit.

Louis walks into the bathroom, and pinches his nose immediately. “Clean yourself up.” He says, leading Zayn to the sink.

He brushes his teeth and washes his face, letting out a happy sigh when the coolness of the water stops the burning all over his body. “Time to go to work, guys.”

Louis snorts. “Yeah, no. you’re not going to work like this.”

“Can’t just miss a day.” Zayn mumbles. “Preposterous.”

“You literally downed two bottle by yourself, I’m pretty sure you actually have alcohol poising right now.” Louis scolds, “And do you really want to see Liam so soon.”

Zayn’s eyes widen comically. “Not Liam, please not him.”

Louis takes him back to bed, and Niall brings him a jug of water “Stay hydrated, and I’ve hidden all the alcohol, so don’t try it.” The blonde says.

“Why’d you do that for?” Zayn narrows his eyes.

He doesn’t get a response, they just ignore him and continue to go about their morning routine. He just sighs and drinks his water.

“Hey Lou,” He calls out after a while. “You think Liam will ask why I’m not in?”

“If he does, I’ll punch him in the face.” Louis says with a straight face. “Straight decking to the jaw.”

*

He doesn’t spend his day off moping and drinking, mostly because it takes hours for the alcohol to drain out of his system and he only gets fully sober around the time Louis and Niall were due home.

He decides that he’s over it. It didn’t work out, so _what_. Liam wasn’t all that special, I mean he was definitely no dream man anymore. Zayn deserved far better than someone who cheats on their wife.

When the two boys return home from the hospital, Niall looks exhausted and somehow exhilarated at the same time. He figures he missed out an incredible surgery. That was just his luck.

And Louis – Louis had a bandage wrapped around his right hand. “What --?” He looks at it pointedly.

Niall giggles and Louis looks smug. “I punched Liam in the face. It was amazing.”

“You did _what_?” Zayn demands, standing up from the sofa and grabbing Louis’ hand to inspect it. “It’s not broken, thank god,”

“Nah, just a little battered. He has an extremely strong face.” Louis points out, “I punched him twice actually, and he didn’t even try to defend himself. At least he knows he deserves it.”

Zayn winces. “You didn’t need to do that, Lou.”

“Anything to protect your honour Zayn.” Louis replies solemnly. “Eleanor wrapped my hand up afterwards at the clinic, she said she was proud of me after she yelled for ten minutes.”

They spend the next hour eating instant noodles and re-enacting Louis’ punch. Niall proves sound effect as Louis dramatically takes Zayn through every detail. Pointing out how he made sure he waited until Liam was outside the building, so he couldn’t be accounted for it.

“He could still get you kicked out the program, Lou.” Zayn says nervously.

“I’d love to see him fucking try.” Louis snorts, “Asshole, who does he think he is going round treating people like that?”

Zayn sighs and sinks lower into the sofa. “I’m over it. It’s whatever.”

Niall scoffs, “’S hardly been a day.”

“More than enough time.”

 

They’re in the middle of watching whatever shitty show was playing in the middle of the night when they’re caught off guard by the doorbell ringing. They glance at each other in the darkened room, the TV light illuminating their confused expressions.

They hear a key turn in the lock and Niall’s breath hitches, and Louis grabs a pillow to his chest. It was almost happening in slow motion, the turn of the key and the door being pushed open. No one moves, until the intruder flicks on the light.

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Louis shouts angrily, jumping up to his feet as soon as it’s made apparent that there was no robber, just Liam Payne, standing in their living room. Louis turns to glare at Zayn. “You gave him a _key_?”

“He knows where the spare one is.” He whispers under his breath, hoping louis won’t make him repeat himself because somehow he was feeling extremely small under Liam’s gaze.

He did try to convince himself he didn’t give s hit anymore, but the panic and ache settles itself back into Zayn’s chest, just as he makes eye contact with Liam for half a second.

Louis storms up to him and Liam holds his hands up defensively. “I just need to talk to him.”

“I told you already, he does not want to see you.” Louis seethes. “Get. Out.”

Liam doesn’t budge.

Louis goes to punch him again, but this time Liam grabs his fist just before it makes impact with his face. “Not again, seriously you’ve done your part of the damage.” Liam says, his voice stony.

Now that Zayn was paying attention, he notices the hues of purple and blue below Liam’s cheekbone. He doesn’t know how he feels about it.

Louis doesn’t let up though, and Liam eventually grabs both of his wrists and twists them to his back. “Let go of me you fucking hulk maniac.” Louis shouts.

Liam holds him still, now looking up at Zayn. “Please tell your fucking guard dog to stop. Or I _will_ break his arms.” He says. “I just need to talk to you, please.”

“Stop it, Lou.” Zayn says quietly, and Louis listens. Liam let’s go of him and Louis looks like an angry kicked puppy. “I don’t want to talk.” Zayn clears his throat, so his voice would actually come out. “You should go.” He feels sick and nervous at the same time, and he’s sure he’s going to throw up at some point now.

“I’m waiting upstairs.” Liam says with a finality in his voice, and Zayn doesn’t have it in him to tell him to stop.

Liam walks up the stairs and the rest of the three boys sit there quietly.

“You should go.” Niall says finally. “Clear up any misunderstandings.”

“There are no misunderstandings, Niall.” Zayn hisses. “He’s married. That’s all there is.”

Niall doesn’t look convinced.

He looks up for Louis’ input who just rolls his eyes, “He’s sitting in your room, not like you have a choice.”

He sits for a while trying to calm his heart pace and collect his thoughts. He’d just listen to whatever bullshit lies Liam was going to feed him, and then send him on this way and stop all communications with him. Easy.

He lets out a long breath, before sanding up. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Louis salutes him as he makes his way to the stairs, and Zayn rolls his eyes. His prior breathing exercising did nothing apparently, because his heart was racing as he stood outside his bedroom door, his hand hovering over the doorknob.

He sucks in a sharp breath and opens the door, this was going to be a quick and easy conversation.

Liam was sitting on the edge of Zayn’s bed, head ducked, nervously plying with his hands. He stands up quickly when he notices Zayn’s presence.

“Hey.” He says, his voice gentle enough for Zayn to feel immediately safe. No, Liam was the one that did him wrong, Zayn should be angry and throwing things, not looking for comfort in Liam’s words.

He doesn’t reply, just purses his lips and sits down where Liam previously was.

“I’m not married, Zayn.” Liam says quickly, and Zayn is taken aback. “Well I am, obviously but like-“ Right, there it was.

“We’re not together, we split up.” He says, pacing the room, his head still ducked. “We were married for a couple of years, and – and it wasn’t right for us you know?”

Zayn can’t describe the relief that flows through him. This wasn’t the perfect situation, but it was better than being the mistress.

“Something happened, so I moved away from the city, away from her and now she’s _here_ and–“

“What? What happened?”

Liam pauses from his pacing for a moment. He runs a hand through his hair, and Zayn notices how utterly stressed out he looks. His brows were furrowed, his eyes looking distant and sad. Somehow, Zayn finds himself wanting to comfort him.

“She slept with my best friend.” Liam says finally, squeezing his eyes shut “God I just – why is she _here_?”

Zayn is dumbfounded for a moment, because his entire view of the situation shifts. _Liam_ wasn’t the evil adulterous whore! Zayn hadn’t doubted him for a second.

 “I came home from the hospital one day, and I knew something was wrong. Nothing was different but still, everything was.” Liam says, back to pacing. He wasn’t sure at this point if he was talking to himself or Zayn. “Walked up to my bedroom, and they were in my -- in _my_ bed!”

“He was my best friend Zayn, and Sophia just went and trampled on everything we had built together!”

“Why’d she do it?” Zayn asks, curiosity getting the better of him. She came here for Liam, so she still must have some sort of feelings for him.

Liam sighs. “I was never around. That’s what she always told me, but I brushed it off, y’know? She was right, I guess. I was distant and hardly ever home and even when I was there. I _wasn’t_.”

“That’s not a good enough reason, Liam.”

“I was a shit husband.” He confesses, brows pinched. “I don’t know why; things were perfect for a while. And then. Things were just different? I didn’t notice it happening, I think. One day I got my head out my ass and realised my wife wasn’t really mine anymore.”

He looks stressed, and Zayn doesn’t like this look on him at all. He kind of wants to say something comforting to diffuse the tension, to get some sort of smile out of him. By the looks of it though, Liam just needed to get this off his chest, without the reactions and forced replies.

“You know what the crazy part is?” Liam asks, not waiting for a response, “When I found them in my room, I didn’t throw a tantrum or kick him out my house or any of the _normal_ reactions a person should have after finding their wife in bed with another man. I just. Turned and left. I remember thinking, ‘ _well_ _that’s_ _over’_ and leaving.”

He’s looking at Zayn directly now. “What kind of reaction _was_ that?”

“You were in shock.” Zayn responds soothingly. “It’s okay.”

“I wasn’t in shock.” Liam shakes his head, frowning. “It was a long time coming. Even I knew that. I didn’t give her what she wanted.”

“Did you love her?”

Liam pauses, replying after a short moment. “I don’t know.” He takes in Zayn’s dubious expression. “I did, for a long time, our marriage was good for a while.”

“But I don’t know anymore. We didn’t talk after it happened. I mean, she chased me down the stairs and begged me to stay. I stayed at a hotel for a couple of days before coming straight here, I got the neurosurgeon placement immediately and I didn’t even think about her until now.”

“Wait, what? Straight after?” Zayn’s heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach, that was what Zayn was waiting for. The confirmation that Zayn exaggerated his place in Liam’s place. “Huh, I was the rebound shag.”

He reminds himself he’s not allowed to be upset or angry about this. Liam was not his boyfriend; he didn’t owe him anything. For some reason though, it still hurts, he wants to mean something to Liam, he wants to be more than the guy he slept with to get over the fact that his wife cheated on him. He just wants _more_.

Liam looks at him sharply. “No, god no, Zayn.” He stops pacing, finally, and sits on the edge of the bed, keeping a distance between himself and Zayn. “I like you, you know that.” He says, punctuating every word. “For you, y’know, not just the sex. You’re incredible in every way, and like I said before I couldn’t date you because of what I had to sort out. It’s why I kept us casual.”

He doesn’t know why, but Liam’s words send a surge of anger through him, because he finally realises something. He stands up from the bed, facing Liam with his hands balled into fists. “We weren’t casual! We weren’t fucking causal so stop acting like and making me convince myself we were!” He shouts furiously. “We did everything we would’ve done if we were dating, except go on fucking dates!”

Liam flinches, leaning back as if he was trying to move away from Zayn’s wrath. “You keep convincing yourself, and telling me that we’re casual, just to hide the fact that you’re a fucking piece of shit! You’re a liar and a piece of _shit_! You couldn’t tell me you were married when we met and you’ve been convincing yourself that’s alright the entire time.”

 Liam purses his lips, pausing for a moment. “It was casual. Tell yourself what you want, but we were casual.” He says, he’s voice perfectly calm and poised.

Zayn clenches his teeth, trying to control the storm of anger in his head. “Just get out of my house.”

Liam stand up, just inches away from him. Close enough to get punched in the face. “I didn’t need to tell you I was married.” He says with a finality in his voice before turning on his heel and leaving the room.

Zayn is left there dumbfounded. How did he end up in this situation? How did his (semi) innocent workplace affair turn into such a mess?

He hears his door creak open, and he’s so not ready to talk to anyone while he can feel his heart cracking inside his chest. Louis appears from behind the door, a sheepish look on his face. Zayn just stares at him as they both stand in his bedroom. “You alright?” Louis asks quietly, a type of sympathy in his eyes that he’s not accustomed to seeing.

“You heard everything.” He realises then.

Louis shrugs. “You guys weren’t exactly quiet.”

Zayn sighs and collapses onto his bed. “I want to stay in my bed for the rest of the year.” He groans. “I fucking hate him.”

Louis lays down next to him, stroking his hair softly. “I know. He sucks.” He says soothingly. “But Niall went out to grab Chinese food and a whole red velvet cake.”

Zayn rest his head on Louis’ shoulder and lets out a sad whine. “And alcohol?”

“No dude. This isn’t worth getting fucked up over, Liam doesn’t deserve it.”

“Don’t _I_ deserve to numb it out for a while?” He groans. “This s a real low-point in my life.”

Louis spend the next half an hour convincing Zayn that it wasn’t so bad, that it was better to have gotten rid of Liam early rather than when he got too attached. Zayn thinks it’s a little late for that, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Oh my god.” He says. “I have to drop out of the placement. I can’t keep working alongside him.”

Louis just ignores him.

“I’m being serious. I feel like I’m drowning just thinking about him, what happens when I have to constantly see him?”

“You be mature about it, Z.” Louis supplies. “This is hard on both of you, remember that. His adulterous wife is working alongside him too now.”

Zayn sits up sharply. “What?”

Louis looks at him quizzically. “She has a few cases here, I heard she’s considering the job but we don’t know yet.”

That was just about all he could take for the day. If the pain in his chest increased anymore, he would end up ripping his own heart out. This shit was a _lot_.

Niall joins them after a while, opening up a whole bag full of fried food on his bed. They spend the rest of night talking and Zayn tries really hard to join in with the laughter and ignore the constant ache inside him. It works for a while, he forgets that he’s miserable because nothing good works out for him, and realises that he just needs to be grateful for the friends he’s made here. There was no way he’d get through this without them.

*

He doesn’t get much sleep that night and he spends the entire morning preparing for his encounter with Liam and Sophia. Louis also forcibly gets him to sit down on the closed toilet seat and wraps and shaves the sides of his head because “Your hair is seriously a monstrosity at this point.”

Zayn just gives in and lets it happen, he had no more fight in him. He spends more time styling it that morning too, pushing up into a fluffy quiff type of thing, somehow looking soft and sharp at the same time.

Niall whistles at him when he goes down to the kitchen, and Zayn rolls his eyes. “Told you it’d look good; you look sexy as fuck.” Louis points out. “Now let’s go so you can go break some more hearts.”

Zayn just agrees, doesn’t see the point in informing Louis that _Zayn_ was the one with the broken heart, not Liam.

Later, when he’s at the hospital, he realises no amount of pep talks he gave himself in the mirror in the morning were going to come in use. Liam is standing in his dark blue scrubs, white lab coat on top, looking as professional and gorgeous as ever. His eyes slide past Zayn as if he wasn’t there, and he continues on his procedures without acknowledging Zayn’s existence.

Dr. Styles assigns him to a case with Eleanor and Josh, and he lets them do most of the work, while he just mopes. Their patient was incredibly boring, providing no challenges that could distract Zayn for the day. He just laid there asleep, with his faulty heart.

“Focus, Zayn.” Josh chides for the third time that morning, a pinched expression on his face.

Zayn just rolls his eyes and passes him the tool he was after. “Right, so his report is good so far, no much changes, but it’s better than nothing.” Josh says, and Eleanor hums in agreement.

“And enzyme levels in the blood are normal as of yesterday’s test.” He continues, “But we should run another one today just in case.”

“Right, I’ll get on that.” Zayn says, moving towards the medical supplies for a needle. The procedure for extracting blood is not as fun and interesting now as it was the first time he did it, but he reckons nothing is intriguing when you’ve done it a couple dozen times.

He’s ripped out his thoughts suddenly when the room I filled with the steady sharp beeping that he’s come to associate with dying patients. He drops his equipment immediately just as Josh yells, “He’s going into V-Fib!”

Josh starts the compressions immediately, and Eleanor shouts at Zayn to grab the paddles, while she presses the emergency button to alert the doctors.

He panics as he lifts the large silver defibrillator, he’s not authorized to do this but if the doctors don’t come in the next five seconds, he would have no choice.

“What are you waiting for?” Josh yells, while Eleanor reprimands him and tell him to wait a moment for someone with more experience.

It only takes a second for Doctor Edwards to rush in, with Liam in tow. He snatches the paddles out of his hands, rattling instructions of to him. “Charge to 150.”

Zayn does as he’s told. Liam shacks the patient, but there’s no change.”

“250!” Liam orders.

Zayn twists the knob to increase the charge. The patient’s heart still doesn’t return to normal.

“350.” Liam says.

Zayn pauses. “But –” He knows charging to 350 is dangerous, and there’s other procedures he can do before making this move he could help Edwards and Josh with compressions. “There’s other--”

“Charge to 350, Malik!” Liam shouts, all professionality out the widow, replaced with anger.

Zayn stops thinking then, just does as he’s told. Liam shocks the paten, and a few seconds later the beeping subsides and his heart returns to a normal pace. Everyone in the room relaxes and the tension starts to seep away.

Liam makes a move to leave the room, but pauses in front of Zayn for a moment. His heart jumps into his throat. “Don’t _ever_ question my decisions like that again.” He says, his voice cold and stern.

He leaves then, and Zayn feels like he’s punched in the stomach. He’s not used to being spoken like that from any doctor, let alone Liam. Not because doctors were nice people or anything, but because Zayn was smart and quick on his feet and by far one of the best interns, and they all loved him. He hardly questioned Liam’s judgement, he was just going to offer an alternate method. Liam was out of line reprimanding him like that, and Zayn decides the other man was letting his personal feelings cloud his judgement.

He also decides that he doesn’t give a shit the he’s supposed to be avoiding Liam, because he marches out of that room following Liam’s lead. He hunched over the front desk, shoulder squared and expression still as pinched as ever.

“Liam.” Zayn says sharply, and the other man looks up, moving away from the desk.

“What?”

“What the hell was that? I wasn’t questioning your judgement, I’m allowed to offer you other ideas, it’s kind of my job.”

Liam down at him, completely unimpressed. “Firstly, you do not get to talk to me like that, I am your superior and we have rules around here. Secondly, that is not your job, you do not have a job except _learn_ from the rest of us.”

Zayn narrows his eyes at him, feeling his frustration get the better of him. “Why are you being such an _ass_?”

Liam doesn’t get a chance to respond, but he catches the look of surprise on his face. A hand curls around Zayn bicep, and drags all the way down to his wrist classing tightly.

“He didn’t mean that at all, Dr. Payne.” Eleanor suddenly appears, looking all kinds of frazzled. “Rough day, he’s very sorry.” She rushes out.

“No I’m—” He pauses when he sees Liam’s eyes drop down to where’s Eleanor’s hand was holding Zayn, his lips pursed. He doesn’t get to finish his sentence though, because she drags him away then, to an empty corridor at the back of the building.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She hisses, “Do you want to lose your place in this program?”

Zayn just shrugs and lowers his gaze to the floor. Then Eleanor let’s out an excited squeal, shaking his shoulder’s vigorously. He was way too exhausted to keep up with her fluctuating moods. “You saw it too right? The way he was looking at us, as if he was a second away from ripping my arm away from you.”

Zayn thinks she’s overstating it a little, but she was fairly, he settles. “You know what that means! He jealous, he’s still into you.” She says in a singsong voice.

“I don’t care.” Zayn replies gruffly, he knows Liam’s feelings for weren’t going to vanish overnight, but he still expected some sort of reservation, he thought Liam would be holding back his feelings rather than displaying them.

“Come on,” Eleanor says, linking their arm together, “Let’s go be a couple and watch Liam seethe with jealousy. Oh! We’ll visit he east wing and spy on Dr. Smith, she’s an OB-GYN.”

“Really? That’s so cool.” Zayn says genuinely. “If the circumstances were different, I would love to work under her for a while.”

Eleanor makes a face at her. “Gynaecology, really?”

“Well, more the obstetrics part, it’d be cool to watch the miracle that is life unfold right in front of you.” Zayn says, only half serious.

“You think life is a miracle? Zayn Malik?” She laughs, “You tried drowning yourself with a water bottle during break last week.”

“Would’ve worked too.” Zayn grumbles.

He doesn’t know what he wants to specialise in yet, he tried to avoid even thinking about it because it stresses him out. He knows Louis is into Paediatrics, Josh has already thrown himself into Cardiothoracic, and Niall was leaning towards trauma.

Every time the topic came up, he ran in the other direction, he still had time to make his decision and it didn’t lessen him as a doctor because he was still unsure.

*

He spends the next few days staying clear of the on-call room (he didn’t really want to hang out in the room that he’d had sex in with Liam unless completely avoidable) mostly because all he could picture when he walks in is Liam laying on the bed slick with sweat with his legs spread apart, and Zayn perched comfortably between his thighs. It was disturbing, to say the least.

He hangs out with the other interns more, he realises he’s spent more time with Liam than with his actual group, save for Louis and Eleanor.

He likes them, Danielle is nice if not a little competitive, and Jade loves bossing him around. Andy spends more time flirting with them than actually working, but somehow he’s still more skilled with a needle than any of them.

“Heard Liam’s wife’s in town.” Andy says with a mouthful of sandwich, while they were sitting in an empty room having lunch. “Bummer.”

Zayn’s not surprised, _everyone_ knows. The place is full of gossips. “Whatever.” Zayn shrugs.

“He needs to find a new lay, I reckon.” Louis pipes up, and Jade giggles.

“I don’t always have to be sleeping with someone, like you imbeciles.” He mutters. He’s pretty sure Louis’ pocketed about three nurses, and he lost track of Andy and his sexual endeavours.

“I’d volunteer myself,” Andy says. “But I’m not into dick.”

“Really sorry to hear that, man.” Zayn replies, kind of hoping the topic would steer away from Liam for a while.

Fortunately, their conversation does move into less dangerous territory, and Zayn finally relaxes a little.

 

*

 

He feels okay, he thinks. The constant dread that was sitting in the bottom of his stomach for the past few days subsides a little, and he doesn’t feel like absolute crap all the time. Louis forcibly puts them on a diet change too, he boils them vegetables and throws out all the microwavable food and replaces it with home cooked chicken. he thinks that helped.

He’s walking in the hallway, going to check up on a patient when he’s caught off guard when someone touches his back, gently pushing him forward into the supplies cupboard. He knows who it is by the feel of the hand and the distinct smell of perfume before he turns around.

Liam closes the door behind them, and put a hand on the wall on the side of him, leaning on it.

“What are you doing? I have work to do.” He says, not raising his voice or conveying his annoyance (he decided he was going to be the bigger person, and he was tired of yelling).

“She wants us to sort things out.” Liam says, looking uncomfortable.

“What am I supposed to do about that?” He asks, “I need to go.” He tries to leave but Liam has his arm firmly planted in front of the door.

“I need your input.” He says, eyeing Zayn carefully.

“This has nothing to do with me.” He finally snaps.

Liam lets out a long sigh. “I don’t want to give you up.” He admits.

His coyness has no effect on Zayn though. “You already did that by not telling me you were married. Now _move_.”

Liam does this time, his lips pursed in annoyance as he lets Zayn slide past him. He can feel his heart thumping in his chest when he’s out of that small cupboard, and all he wants to do is get as far as he can possibly get from Liam.

He’s noticed the whispers and stares and by now he’s used to it, and they were thankfully starting to decrease. Everyone was interested to see how he would be dealing with the new member added to the staff, who just so happened to be his not-boyfriend’s wife.

Even Dr. Styles eventually corners him and sits him down in the deserted corridor at the back of the hospital. It had become quite the retreat for the staff who didn’t want to be in an on-call room.

Zayn sits down on the edge of one of the hospital beds, and Styles sits a small distance away. He taller man sighs and peers at Zayn, they’d developed a good relationship over the month. It didn’t mean that Styles ever wanted to hear about personal business or offered emotional support, he just stared you down until you got over it. Zayn thinks Styles’ was slowly starting to soften up though, just yesterday he told Louis that he’d make an incredible Paediatric one day. Louis’ been glowing ever since.

“Look, Zayn.” Styles says. “Payne is my superior, and not to get into specifics but he made an ass move, and if I could, I would follow Tomlinson’s path and deck the guy.”

Zayn can’t say he’s not a little taken aback. He didn’t think this was how the conversation was going to start. Styles was the type of doctor that was all-professional and respected and didn’t’ take shit from anyone. Nor did he give a shit about what personal issues the interns were going through.

“Don’t get me wrong, I steer clear of situations like these.” He says, and Zayn’s lips quirk up a little. That was the resident he knew and loved. “But you’re my intern, and I know this is bothering you. I don’t want to see you distressed.”

Zayn tuts, “Seems to me like you’re starting to care about me.”

Styles’ frowns. “It’s effecting your performance. Your skills have been detrimental at best these last few days.”

“Oh.”

“But yes, I guess you’re right. You’re a good kid.” He nods.

Zayn grins now, shuffling closer and putting an arm around the other man’s shoulder. “Aren’t you a softie today!”

“Don’t push it, Malik.” He chides, with no heat. “I need you to forget whatever’s bothering you, or go visit Karen in the East Wing. She’ll listen to all your nonsense.”

“I don’t need a therapist.” Zayn says defensively.

“I can’t name you a single doctor in this building who hasn’t had at least five sessions with her.” He says, all knowingly. “I know Liam goes regularly.”

“He does?” Zayn piques up.

Styles furrows his brows. “What did I just tell you? Stop getting that dazed look on your face every time his name is mentioned. I was testing you and you failed.” He says, getting off the bed. “ _Failed_ , Malik”

“Damn, okay.” Zayn mutters under his breath, not bothering to deny the ‘dazed expression’ comment. (He did _not_.)

*

He takes Styles’ advice in stride, and does what any other heartbroken doctor would do. He throws himself into work. Mercilessly, too, because it was his third night staying in the hospital finish up the day’s paperwork. It was the perfect way to get his mind of things, that were starting to eat him up from inside. Lucky for him, there was never a shortage of paper work so he could

Niall had stopped convincing him to come home a few hours ago, when he realised he was just going to get hit with dismissive comments every time. Louis comes into the room before he leaves, with a coat slung over his shoulder, “another night at the hospital?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Bit busy right now.” Zayn mumbles, not lifting his eyes form the desk.

He hears louis huff, some parts fond but mostly exasperated. He drops a paper bag in the small free area of the table and Zayn finally lifts his eyes. “Don’t forget to eat, yeah?” He says, voice low but soft. Zayn nods, realising that he was starved and his chest fills with this soft fluttering that he’s only become acquainted with, that he’s starting associated with the ‘I-have-the-sweetest-friends’ feeling.

Louis fishes through his pocket now, dropping a small box on the table. “It’s your pink grapefruit soap.” He states, Zayn looks at him confusedly. “The one you’re currently using here makes you smell like a hospital patient and I hate it.”

Zayn lets out a soft laugh, feeling himself relax slightly. His friends had his back, always, he needs to not ever forget that. “Thanks, Lou.” He says.

Louis just gives him a nod and a wink before turning to leave the room.

He lets out a long breath and waits for the inevitable build-up of nerves in stomach to start bothering him again. He was a jittery mess the whole time he was in the hospital, running on caffeine and the snacks the boys would drop off to him. He doesn’t give himself a break, running from patient to patient, then isolating himself in a room to do the paperwork just to feel some sort of fulfilment again.

And he wants to top, god he wants to stop. But he can’t, he loves the way his mind is constantly occupied and he doesn’t have to think about anything else (except maybe his deteriorating health, which was ironic, being a doctor and all) and no one really had any complaints about him doing everyone’s work for them.

The door of the rooms bangs open, suddenly and Dr. Styles stands in the doorway. He was no longer in his scrubs, instead he was wearing a loose dark red sweater with fitted black jeans. He looked way less intimidating dressed like a normal person, even considering the fact that his lips were pressed into a thin angry line, and his eyes glowering at Zayn.

“Get up. Now.” He says, his voice stern and still very much boss-like.

Zayn listens immediately, thinking about how he had definitely jinxed the whole getting told off thing. Styles’ steps out of the room, and Zayn follows, head ducked like a puppy getting told off by its owner.

He still manages to spot Liam standing by the reception desk from the corner of his eyes, the other man watching them intently. His stomach drops.

 “When I told you to focus.” Dr. Styles’ chastises, “This is not what I meant.” He points at the dimly lit room. “Go home, get some rest and I don’t want to see your face in here for another day. You hear me?”

“Yes Sir.” Zayn mumbles.

“And for the love of God, go visit Karen.” He mutters, more quietly.

Zayn nods, and glances up, Liam was now accompanied by Sophia, who wasn’t paying them the slightest bit of attention, unlike her husband, who’s eyes followed Zayn as he walks away from Dr. Styles with a quiet thank-you and goodbye.

He lets out a shuddering breath when he’s at his lockers, suddenly feeling the exhaustion wash over him in waves. Everything hurts and his body was aching with hunger, but he forgot Louis’ food at the desk and he really doesn’t want to walk past Liam again to grab it.

He changes into his clothes (slowly, because he needs to save the last of his energy to walk home) and slings his bag over his shoulder. When he walks out of the hospital, he considers calling Louis for a lift, but it was nearing 2am and he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of Louis’ bitchy just-woke-up mood.

The fifteen-minute walk seems infinitely long, but he manages to make it home. The house was silent and dark when he goes in, and he heads straight upstairs. He catches his reflection in the mirror, eye bags prominent and his hair sticking out at every angle. He doesn’t think about it.

He doesn’t even have the energy to undress he just turns his alarm off before he just collapses onto the bed (so much more comfortable than the shitty hospital ones he was getting used to) and falls asleep within seconds.

*

He wakes up to the feeling of nausea pulling at his stomach and chest. He runs to the toilet, absolutely certain he was about to throw up, but he does nothing but dry heave, which makes him feel worse. He knows he needs to go downstairs and get something to eat, even though the thought of food was making him heave.

He focuses on walking, putting one foot in front of the other until he’s downstairs. “Zayn.” He hears, Louis’ voice, as he grabs the edge of the table with his eyes squeezed closed to try and focus his vision.

“Lou, my head.” He chokes out. “Make me some breakfast.”

“Take this,” He opens his eyes as Niall thrusts his plate towards him. He takes the toast gratefully, taking a bite. “Thanks, Ni.” He says around the food.

Louis smiles at him then, looking relieved. “Had me worried there, looked like you were about to pass out.”

Zayn smiles wryly, “Sorry, babe.”

Louis jumps off the stool then, grabbing his travel cup. “Alright, we’re off.” He says, and Niall begrudgingly makes a move too. “Enjoy your day off!”

“How do you know about that?” Zayn asks confusedly.

“Who do you think tipped off the boss, doll?” Louis says teasingly, and Zayn growls lowly. His head feels light again, and he reaches for the other piece of toast.

He doesn’t know how he loses control over his own body, because the bred slips from his fingers easily, and Zayn doesn’t even see it fall because all he can see are the black dots clouding his vision. “Lou?” he calls out. There’s a sharp pain in his stomach, and if he was currently capable, he would be listing his symptoms and diagnosing himself. Instead he tries to focus on the two figures towards him, blurry and their voices not quite reaching his ear.

He hears someone shout his name, just before he stumbles into someone’s chest and his vision turns to black.

 

*

 

When he wakes up, he’s attached to a drip. He glances down, and there’s a needle pierced into his arm, and he groans internally because this could not be happening to him.

That was only the second worst thing though, because the minute his eyes are open four doctors come marching into his room.

“Zayn! You had me worried sick.” Louis flings himself at Zayn ungracefully, half his body lying on the hospital body.

“Yeah, what the hell. I was shitting myself.” Niall says, his eyes swimming with concern.

“I’m fine, guys.” He mutters. “Can you take this off me? I honestly feel fine.” He knows that wasn’t going to work, but he tries his luck anyway.

“Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want to see you face here today?” Dr. Styles chastises, with his reports in his hands. He kind of wants to see them, see what his state was, but the perks of being a doctor where he was easily able to diagnose himself.

He ignores Liam, who was standing a few meters away from the three other doctors, focusing on Styles’ instead. “Go on then, Dr. Malik. Pretend you’re doing rounds and present yourself.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “I was dehydrated, which caused minor case of kidney stones.” He says, “You’ve probably put me on oxycodone, which why I feel lightheaded right now. I’m probably going to face some dizziness and nausea due to the strength of the painkillers.”

“Severely dehydrated.” Louis supplies.

“Good.” Styles says, ignoring Louis. “I’ll leave you with your friends now,” He shoots an apprehensive glance towards Liam, before continuing. “Who will take care of you while you’re admitted here. Not for long, we’re just going to keep an eye on you for a few hours and monitor you.”

“Thank you Dr. Styles.” Zayn says, and the other man nods before leaving the room.

Liam steps forward then, and Zayn winces slightly. “Can I talk to him in private, for a minute?” He asks, glancing at Niall and Louis.

Louis scoffs, but before he can make a wise-crack, Zayn finds himself speaking up. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Liam’s face remains as emotionless as it was, closing the door behind the other two as they leave. He turns to face Zayn then, crossing his arms over his chest.

Zayn sinks down into his bed. “Before you say anything, I’m not in hospital because of you.” He says. “I just wanted to focus on something for a while, it has nothing to do with you.”

Liam purses his lips. “I’m not naïve enough to think this has nothing to do with us.” He says. “But mostly this is because you’re careless, irresponsible and unbelievably reckless.”

Zayn doesn’t know why he has to hear this from Liam, because he’s sure Louis or Niall have rehearsed a speech like this for him. He also doesn’t want to be told he’s careless from a married man who was sleeping with him.

“Thanks for pointing that out.” Zayn says. “You can kindly leave and possible go screw yourself.”

Liam doesn’t budge, nor does he look amused. Instead he drags a chair close to the bed and sits down. “I don’t think you handled this situation well, Zayn.” He says.

“I don’t hint _you_ handled it well.” He retorts childishly. He thinks he sees a ghost of a smile on Liam’s face.

Liam looks at him closely now, his eyes lidded with concern. “Do you know how worried I was? Seeing you get wheeled into the hospital you looked – you looked _dead_.” He says. “I thought something terrible had happened.”

“Well I’m fine and dandy, Payne.” He replies airily. “Nothin’ to worry ‘bout here.”

“I know I didn’t do right by you by not telling you about my sham of a marriage.” Liam states, finally, leaning back on the chair.

Zayn just shrugs, as if it hadn’t been breaking him slowly the last week.

“Really? But I thought we were just friends with benefits? Without the friend’s part.” Zayn comments mockingly. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t tell me about your past relations, none of my business.”

“It does matter, and it was your business.” Liam sighs, starting to look a little tense. “I planned on keeping our relationship casual at the beginning, so I didn’t feel the need to share it. I obviously didn’t think I was going to end up really feeling things for you, y’know?”

Zayn gulps, and averts his eyes away from Liam’s intense gaze. “You’re telling me this because you feel bad for me.” He notes.

“I just want you to know how I felt.” Liam says, and Zayn doesn’t miss how he puts a little more emphasis on the ‘felt’.

“How do you feel now?” Zayn asks, trying to keep his tone as casual as possible

“I feel.” Liam starts, “Like I should listen to Sophia and try and fix things between us.”

Zayn’s heart drops to the bottom of his stomach and he feels as if someone’s just punched him in the gut. “That sounds fun.” Zayn forces out. “Amending things with your cheating wife.”

Liam smiles wryly, “Wouldn’t expect you to get it, you’re still young.” He says. “I’ve built my entire life around that relationship.”

“You dropped it all when you moved here.” Zayn points out. “And you’re doing just fine.”

Liam sighs, pushing his chair back. “Take care of yourself, yeah?” He says as he stands up. “And you can talk me whenever you want, it doesn’t have to be weird between us."

Zayn just nods, and watches Liam leave the room. He flutters his eyes closed and tries not to think about Liam’s words and the devastation settling deep into his stomach.

*

Zayn’s next approach at dealing with things was to suck it up and deal with it with maturity, like an adult. It seemed like the reasonable thing to do. He takes a couple of days off, because Styles’ forces him to, and when he’s back he genuinely feels good. Maybe this whole _sleep_ thing wasn’t as overrated as he thought.

Eleanor visited every day, making him cupcakes and all kinds of pastries that Zayn adored, they were always warm and reminded him of home. When he gets back, Styles’ sends him straight to work in the clinic, glowering at him before Zayn can even complain.

The clinic was the most uneventful place to be. He might as well just be put on bed rest again. Louis and Niall come visit him, both giggling at his misfortune as he glares at them threateningly. “Piss off, guys. I have work to do.”

“Like what?” Louis snorts. “Someone need you to put a plaster on their elbow ‘cos they can’t reach.”

Zayn shoves him lightly, because he did have to do that earlier. Twice. “I just want to work on a real gory case. Like someone with a ripped open chest.”

“Gross, dude. Nothing much happening down there either, though.” Niall says, “We’ll try get you paged if something goes wrong though.”

“Appreciate it, Niall.”

He does eventually get paged into the pit after a because of a trauma, a lorry crashing into a family car.

His stomach twists with nerves, as a bunch of doctors wait by the door waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Liam is standing by Sophia, and he just passes by them easily, being the mature person he is now.

Liam, Edwards and Styles are the first to run to the ambulance when it arrives. There’s a sudden burst of sound and energy, as everyone moves into place. The ambulance doors open and a patient is wheeled out, “Mark Deiner, 38, glass pierced into skull, two broken bones.” A paramedic shouts, “No signs of a heart beat.” The patient is crowded with proficient doctors, as he’s rushed inside and straight into an ER.

The second ambulance arrives a few seconds later, “Sandra Deiner, 32, pregnant, the baby needs to come out immediately.” A paramedic rushes out, and before he can even process the words, Sophia is calling him and a few other doctors into an ER.

The patient was still breathing, with a blunt trauma to her ribs. Sophia orders everyone around, getting them prepared for a surgery. “Malik, monitor the heart rate of the baby.” She demands. “Don’t move, and do not move your eyes from that monitor.”

Zayn nods quickly, already taking a seat where the monitor was perched on a table. In any other circumstance, he would have complained about the lack of action his task had, but Sophia was kind of terrifying when she was working.

Slowly, a lot of the doctors are called out of the room, urgently needed to assist in the other patient’s surgery who was in critical condition.

There were two doctors left, and half a dozen nurses, working on keeping the mother and child alive. The numbers on the screen in front of his start dropping, and he jumps into action immediately, “Pressures dropping!” He shouts, and Sophia’s pauses for a second, her hands currently clamping down a blood leak.

“Zayn.” She says lowly, “You need to listen to my instructions very closely now, understand?”

He nods immediately, the adrenaline taking over his doubts. “Good. You’re going to remove and incubate the baby now, okay?”

He nods. “As soon as the nurse is done attaching the catheter and IV you’re going to take that scalpel, and gently make an incision on her abdomen.”

He swallows, picking up the scalpel. He’s done quite a lot of supervised incisions since the first incident, and he knows he can do this.

When the patient is done being prepped, he moves to the table, and doesn’t hesitate to slice down the woman’s stomach. He’s knows he has to be fast-paced to keep up with that environment around him, and to keep both the patients safe.

“Good, now another incision on the uterus.” She instructs, peering at him sideways while she focuses on her own task at hand. 

He does as he’s told, rupturing the amniotic sac. “Lift the baby, nice and slow.”

Zayn’s hand tremor in front of, hovering in front of the tiny baby. “Hey, you can do this, just relax.” Sophia says. “I’ve never seen such a clean uterus slicing for a first timer.”

He tries to relish the compliment, as he dips his gloved hand inside the body and places them under the baby, gently lifting up. “Oh my god.” He says quietly, as the baby is in his hand. “Oh my god I did it.”

A nurse cuts the umbilical cord, and Zayn quickly gets the baby into an incubator. He’s out of breath and completely exhilarated.

“Vitals stable, I can stich her up now.” She says, letting the other doctor finish off the last part and moving down to the womb and closing her up.

Her vitals remain stable, and the baby’s heart beat was regular. When the patient gets wheeled out the room, Zayn follows the rest of the doctors to the scrub room. He peels off his gloves and throws his mask in the bin.

“That was impressive work, Zayn.” Dr. Smith says to him, as they both wash their hands in the metal basin.

“Thank you.” Zayn replies earnestly. “It was a pleasure working under you.”

“So polite.” She lets out a little out. “Can see why my husband was so smitten over you.”

Zayn freezes, and Sophia turns her back to him and leaves the room. He feels cold all over suddenlty, an uneasy feeling settling inside him.

There was no way she could say something like that so causally. Her behaviour confused him, she would occasionally smile at him in the hallways, and whatever this conversation was, it didn’t make sense to be this civil towards the guy who was literally sleeping with her husband. She should hate him. Zayn wonders about how dysfunctional their relationship must be.

Zayn goes back to the clinic and works there for a few hours, patiently waiting on the news of the other patient, who Louis and Niall were scrubbing in on. When he goes back to the main building and Louis instantly wraps himself around Zayn, wailing about how much he missed him.

“Shut up, dude.” Zayn mutters, peeling away from his friend. “How was the surgery?”

“Amazing, I saw Liam fingering a brain. The patient actually survived all that.” He says. “That man has talents beyond normal human capabilities.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. Listening to Louis wax on about how great Liam was not top ten things he wanted to discuss. “And I heard you delivered a baby!”

Zayn nods, smiling. “You can tell me all about it when we get home.” He says, quickly glancing back, and then walking past him.

Liam approaches him next, a wide grin on his face. “I heard you delivered a baby!”

“Yeah, was nothing.” He mumbles sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. He could see Sophia talking to the cluster of doctors outside the ER, probably the one who told Louis and Liam about the delivery.

“Nothing? You should be proud; you did an incredible thing.” He says, “Couldn’t have been easy being put in such a tense situation for the first time. You did an amazing job.” Zayn tries not to overthink it, this was just a doctor complimenting his work, nothing more, it didn’t mean anything. Liam definitely seemed more excited than Zayn was in that moment, and he tried to reciprocate the happiness.

“How was your surgery then? Heard the guy lived.” Zayn asks. He wasn’t used to talking to Liam like this, with a faux politeness that sounded way too much like normal colleagues talking. Which is what they were though, so he just had to deal with that.

“Yeah, it was crazy!” Liam exclaims, “Turns out it was him who crashed into the lorry, not the other way round. We did a scan and he had a tumour in his brain, it’s was caused the seizure while he was driving. It wasn’t too big so I managed to get it all out in one go.”

Zayn raises his brows, clearly impressed. He seemed kind of silly for being proud about doing a C-Section, he didn’t just carve a tumour out of a guy’s brain.

“How are you, anyway? Did you get rested up on your days off?” He asks, his tone casual and friendly.

“Uh yeah, it was good.” He says, “Wouldn’t mind being on bedrest again. Eleanor came over and made me baked goods every day.”

Liam pauses for a seconds, lifting his brows. “Right.” It takes a second for Zayn to realise, but he clicks on that Eleanor was right, it _does_ bother Liam.

He tries not to feel smug about it. “How’s it going with Sophia?”

“Good, good.” Liam responds lightly. “Yeah we’re uh, working on it.”

“Glad to hear it.” Zayn smiles, and he’s sure Liam winces. “I’ll see you around then.”

When he gets home later that night, he relays his interactions with Sophia and Liam to his roommates, needing to get it off his chest.

“Well, she’s a better woman than we thought.” Louis says. “I would give hell to the person sleeping with _my_ husband.”

“She cheated on him, she’s not the better woman.” Niall points out. “She can’t be mad about it, plus they weren’t together at the time.”

“Always so logical, Niall.” Louis tuts.

“Not where I saw this conversation going, but alright.” Zayn groans, tipping his head back on the sofa. “I just want to know how to hold a normal co-worker esque conversation with him without feeling like killing myself immediately after.”

“You just have to ride it out, dude. It’ll stop bothering you after a while.” Niall says, “Get over it, you never had a relationship with the guy it shouldn’t be hard.”

“Harsh, man.” Louis says, and Zayn snorts.

“Y’right, he’s not that great anyway.” Zayn grumbles. “He just took a tumour out of a guy in a freak accident the same day the patient was admitted. Anyone could do that.”

Louis makes a face at him. “Is it Liam you like or just his skills with his hands?”

Zayn sighs. “Honestly, I don’t even know.”

“Your sadness is getting is getting me seriously bummed these days.” Louis whines.

“Sorry to be such an inconvenience.” He mutters dryly.

“We should throw a party, like the one Andy had at his place at the beginning of the year.” He says. “Invite all our under 40 co-workers.”

Zayn scoffs. “Definitely fucking not. Don’t do shit like that in my house.”

“Sure, whatever.” Louis says dismissively, turning to Niall who was mostly dozed off and listing people they could invite.

Zayn pulls himself off the sofa, stretching his arms over his head. “’M bein’ serious Lou, pull that shit and you can find yourself a new roommate.”

“You’ll move out?” Louis asks teasingly.

“No, you dumb fuck, I’m kicking you straight to the kerb.”

*

 

He learns to pace himself the next few days. Styles keeps an eye on eye on him, and Louis always forces him to take regular breaks. Niall drags him to a smoothie bar down the street every opportunity he gets, and that probably did more harm than good.

“I can’t feel my tongue.” Zayn says, holding his second pineapple and mango smoothie of the day. Niall just laughs and they walk into the hospital together.

“’Cos the pineapple is breaking down the proteins in your tongue.” Niall says. “Maybe just stick to one a day.”

Zayn shakes his head, no way, this was his new healthy obsession and he wasn’t letting go. They both get paged straight after that, and their break is cut short.

He’s doesn’t get to scrub in the surgery, but he watches from the gallery. I was half full, and he notices Sophia walk in from the corner of the eye. He stomach does a half flip but he just focuses on the goings-on of the surgery.

She sits next to him, and Zayn pays no mind to her. There was no need to spark up friendly conversation in the gallery, they were here for the same thing, to learn. (Okay, he was here to watch Liam operate, but same thing.)

“Hey, Zayn.” She says lightly.

He turns to face her, forcing a smile onto his face. He hopes it looks like a smile, and not a grimace. “Dr. Smith.” He nods once.

They sit in silence for a while, and Zayn watches the way Liam’s hands skilfully and gently carve into a man’s brain.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Her voice takes him out of his trance.

“Uh, yeah.” He responds, trying not to sound dismissive. He watches her from the corner of his eyes, her smooth brown hair cascading past her shoulder, and her elbow leaning on her thigh so she could rest her head in her hand. Her perfectly manicured fingers tapped at her cheek, and Zayn can definitely see why Liam went back to her.

She was beautiful and smart, and maybe working out their mistakes was the right thing for them. “Did you ever it incredibly hard to get through to him?” She asks suddenly, sitting up and facing Zayn directly, as if she had been waiting this entire time to ask him.

“Um. Excuse me?” He asks, completely caught off-guard.

“I’m back on square one, trying to get past these walls he’s built around himself, and I just –“ She pauses, letting out an irritated sigh. “He doesn’t even see me anymore.”

Zayn blinks at her.

“You and him weren’t’ together, were you?” She asks, brows pinching curiously, half looking like she was afraid of the answer.

“No, no we didn’t date or anything.” He says quietly.

She sighs, looking a little relieved. “Okay good, so it’s not that’s what’s bothering him, not like he’s pining over you” She goes back to sounds frustrated. “I just want him to open up to me, I know we have a long way to go before things can be normal, but I’m his wife. He acts like he still hates me, I know I made the wrong decision, but how can we move past it if he just doesn’t budge.”

Zayn glances around nervously. Why the hell were they having this conversation? “Uh, I’ve heard Karen on fifth floor is good with these things?”

“Karen?” She scoffs. “That woman hates me, she’s probably heard Liam’s side of the story and is siding with him.”

“I don’t think she’s allowed to—“

“As if cheating on my constant absent husband is the worst thing to happen in a marriage, he could’ve put some effort in. It’s like he wants us to fail.” She says.

He doesn’t make a comment, he does not want to cm in between an angry doctor and her angry doctor husband. He’s made some pretty bad choices since joining this hospital, this was not going to be one of them.

“We could be friends, you know, Zayn.” She says finally, placing her hand neatly on her lap, as if she was proposing a business offer.

“Uh, yeah sure.” He says, smiling tightly.

“Good.” She says. “Yeah that’s – that’s good.”

She stands up, then, nodding at him with a pinched smile of her own, before she leaves the gallery. Zayn just watches her, wondering what the hell just happened. This was the last thing he expected from her, he had thought it would be more likely that she would wrap her hands around his throat than her coming to him venting about her marriage.

Her persistent presence was making avoiding Liam _hard_. Every time he finally stopped thinking about him, she would pop out of no-where, pushing him back to square one.

He’s managed to convince himself that it doesn’t sting so much anymore, when he sees them walk into the hospital every morning hand-in-hand. And it doesn’t, really, it’s just that she brings him coffee before surgeries and he kisses her with a smile and. It _stings_.

*

He ends up staying in the hospital way past midnight that night. A trauma incident was rushed in and Zayn scrubbed in on the only surgery there was. He was exhausted when on is trek back home, kicking rocks and taking his time.

Louis and Niall were probably dead asleep, without a worry in the world and it was actually embarrassing how jealous Zayn was of them. He just wanted to sleep and stop _feeling_ all these awful things.

He realises that he kinds of resents Liam for doing this to him, like really truly despises him. A few couple months ago he was _fine_ , he wasn’t constantly carrying a weight on his chest, and he definitely wasn’t pining over a married man.

He’s startled out of thoughts suddenly, when he realises he can hear music. He walks closer to his house, blinking up at it. There was no way there was music pouring out of his house. Definitely not at this time.

But then the door swings open, and that was definitely a nurse wearing a dress, holding a red cup and giggling into the shoulder of her companion.

Zayn was going to kill his roommates and make it look like a tragic accident. He was a doctor, so he could do it, too.

He swallows down whatever anger was threating to escape, and orcs him to remain calm as he walks down the front lawn and into the house. A few people cheer drunkenly when they see him, he just frowns at them.

He never thought he’d see this many doctors and nurses packed into his house, completely and utterly drunk. And the thing was, he was used to seeing them stressed but right now, everyone’s faces were plastered with wide smiles and it was just _unfamiliar_ to him.

Louis appears out of nowhere, falling into Zayn’s stiff arms. “Louis!” He growls angrily, pushing the other boy out of his arms. “I didn’t say you could do this in my house!”

Louis’ eyes were glazed over, his lips spread into a wide grin. “’Course you didn’t, ‘cos you’re a right bore.”

He grabs Zayn’s hand, forcing him to enclose his hands around a bottle. “Loosen up, you need it more than anyone here.” He says, before wandering off with a bounce in his step.

Eleanor and Andy approach him as soon as they see him, wrapping their arms around him and mumbling things with dopey smiles on their faces.

He wasn’t going to be the only sober person in his house party. He doesn’t think about it too much, just tips his head back when the rim of his bottle meets his lips. Eleanor cheers and Zayn rolls his eyes, taking another sip and wincing at the bitterness of whatever it was that Louis had handed to him.

It’s not long after when Zayn finds himself dancing with Louis in his living room, with the buttons of his shirt all undone. The room is loud with music and drunk laughter and he finds himself laughing along with people he hardly knew.

Louis was singing (screaming) along with the music, and Zayn was toppled over with laughter. Andy wraps his hands around Zayn’s waist and plants a wet kiss onto his cheek, “I love you so much!” he shouts.

“Me too!” Eleanor says loudly, giggling as they all wrap themselves around each other.

Jade traipses over to them after a while too, handing Zayn a cup filled to the top either an amber coloured liquid.

“Hey,” She whisper shouts into his ear, “Did you know Edwards is at your party?”

Zayn didn’t think Louis would have invited the senior doctors, but right now he’s too elated to care. “Do you think I’m impressing her? I want to get picked for her surgery next week.” Jade says her face serious, but her words slurring together.

Zayn squints at her, and she stands up straight, adjusting her dress and fixing her expression into a smoulder. At least that’s what he thinks she’s doing.

He grins at her, giving her a thumbs up. “Amazing, Jade! She’ll think you’re the only option!” He shouts back enthusiastically, and she beams back at him.

Louis stumbles up to him next, grabbing his face. “Sophia was here earlier. I saw her with my own two eyes.”

Zayn just pushes him off with a laugh, there was far too much alcohol inside him for that to mean anything. He goes back to dancing and laughing with his friends, as they all finally let loose after a long hard week.

He spots Dr. Styles talking to a nurse by the coach, and quickly swipes a bottle off Louis. He walks up to him, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling on his face. “Styles!” Zayn shouts.

The taller man looks at him, lips quirking into smile. He puts a hand on Zayn’s shoulder to steady him. “When Louis gave me this address for a party, I was expecting champagne and hor devours.”

“Boring,” Zayn sings, passing him a bottle. “You’re not drunk enough.”

 A few other doctors and nurses approach him after that, drunkenly commenting on his nice and big his house was, and Zayn only comprehends less than half of the conversation.

At some point he finds himself swaying to the music standing on top of the kitchen table. Louis stands by the stools, cheering him on loudly. Everything was blurry and his senses were clouded with intoxicants combined with music and he finally felt like the pressure of the world wasn’t going to crush him.

Andy joins him on the table for a while, before he falls on his ass and Louis drags him away, then he’s left alone with a bottle in his hands.

He’s in the middle of telling everyone how much taller he was than them all, when someone tugs at his jeans and wraps their hand around his ankle. He tries kicking it off, he does want to stop dancing but the person was persistent. He realises they’re also calling his name, so he looks down and his heads spins form the movement, it makes Zayn laugh.

He takes in the head of oft brown hair and narrowed eyes and he laughs again. “Zayn.” Liam snaps, “Get down from there.”

“No, ‘m havin’ fun!” He says back, but somehow Liam grabs hold of his wrist and pulls him down and help him climb off the table.  “Why is your shirt open?”

Zayn just narrows his eyes at him, then Liam’s hands are firmly on his shoulders, he thinks it’s because he’ stumbled a little but he doesn’t really know what his limbs are doing anymore.

“You’re so _drunk_.” Liam says, he sounds critical.

Zayn pushes his away. “Fuck off Liam. Why are you even here?” He says, he tries to sound coherent but all he hears from his mouth are a jumbled mess of words. “God, I fucking _hate_ you.” He groans.

Liam looks concerned. “I’ll get you some water.”

“No,” Zayn says, grabbing Liam before he tries to move. “Stay here.” He grabs a fistful of Liam’s shirt, mostly to keep himself steady. “’Cos I need to tell you how much I hate you.”

Liam winces. “I’m sorry.”

Zayn lets go of his shirt then, smoothing out the wrinkled area with his fingers, and he rests his palm for a moment too long before pulling away. If someone asked him to spell his name he wouldn’t be able to answer, but he could them that he missed feeling Liam under his hand, he missed the feel of Liam’s warmth on his skin.

“Hate you,” He mumbles childishly, looking away from the other man’s soft and apologetic eyes. “Where’s Sophia? You here alone?”

Liam nods. “She went back home a while ago.”

 _Home_. Zayn cringes.

“I should go now, yeah?” Liam says gently. “Be careful now, okay?”

That’s all he says before he turns to leave. Zayn just stands there in his kitchen, shoulders slumped and feeling like he just got punched in the gut. He doesn’t know if he wants to scream or cry, he doesn’t know why Liam still has this effect on him, he shouldn’t feel like his chest was being torn into because he was supposed to be over it now.

Somehow the alcohol was having an adverse effect on him now, he was being viscously dragged down from cloud nine and now being thrown into a pit of despair. He finds himself grabbing another bottle, blinking away tears and chugging.

The crowd had thinned out by now, but there were still groups of people stumbling about and laughter floating around the living room. He could probably sneak away unnoticed.

When he had that thought, he assumed it meant he was going to head to his room but somehow he finds himself walking out of the front door. He tries to walk in a straight line, taking steady steps down the road, the same route Liam had taken a few several minutes ago.

He shivers and tries buttoning up his shirt but his fingers were too clumsy and refused to cooperate with him, he just opts to wrap his arms arounds himself instead.

He walks for a while, and only walks into a lamppost twice before he finds himself knocking loudly on Liam’s front door.

He has no clue as to why the drunk version of him thought this was a good idea, but he misses Liam so much ad all he wants to do is touch him. It was obvious his relationship with Sophia wasn’t as fulfilling, they weren’t even at the party together for god’s sake! That was more than enough for Zayn to make his mind up.

The door opens, and Liam just stares at him confusedly.

“Leeyum!” Zayn slurs out, excitedly.

“Be quiet!” Liam hisses, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him inside the house. “What are you doing here?” He whisper shouts.

Zayn can’t even process his words, all he sees is Liam in a tight tank top and bulging muscles and pink lips.

“Wanted to see you.” He says, stumbling into Liam’s space, easily slotting himself with the other man.

“Zayn, no.” He groans quietly. “Stop. Sophia’s asleep upstairs.”

He wraps his arms around Liam’s neck, and Liam steadies him by putting his hands on the small of Zayn’s back.

“ _Zayn_.” He whispers quietly, breathing onto his neck.

“Hmm?” He replies, feeling content at just being held.

Liam doesn’t say anything, just pulls away. Zayn can’t read his expression, isn’t sure if he wants to. “How much did you drink?”

Zayn shrugs. He wasn’t drunk and it was ridiculous that he was being accused of being so, he just wanted to see Liam so that’s what he did.

“What’s today’s date?” Liam asks.

It takes a moment for the question to register, he’s more focused on Liam squinting at him with a serious look in his face, he looked hilarious. Zayn giggles. What were they talking about again?”

“Oh my god.” Liam mumbles under his breath. He leaves for a moment, and Zayn just sways in his spot until Liam returns with a water bottle in one hand. With his other hand, he grabs Zayn’s wrist and tugs him up the stairs.

“Don’t make a single noise.” He whispers. Zayn hums in response.

He leads Zayn to the guest bedroom, which he was already acquainted too. He vaguely remembers having Liam spread out on this bed when his bedroom was too messy one time.

Liam walk over to the bed and moves the corner duvet of the duvet and gestures to it. “Get in.” He orders, his voice demanding but still hushed. “Y’need to sleep.”

“Don’t wanna sleep.” Zayn giggles, moving towards Liam. “Want _you_.”

Liam doesn’t respond, just grabs Zayn’s shoulders and moves him onto the bed. Zayn shrugs his shirt off and tosses it to the end of the bed, along with his jeans.

Liam blinks at him for a moment before looking away, as Zayn pulls the duvet over himself. “Fine I’ll sleep.” He mumbles. “Only ‘cos I’m really tired now.”

“Drink all of this too.” He says, tossing the bottle to him. He goes to the en-suite bathroom and returns with a bin. “If you feel sick, aim for the bin as best you can, the carpet’s new.”

Zayn nods, waving him off. “Go ‘way now, I’m tryna sleep.”

Liam rolls his eyes, mumbling something under his breath about Zayn’s quick change of moods. Zayn just hums happily until Liam switches the light off and closes the door behind him.

*

Zayn wakes up feeling as if someone was pounding at his head with a sledgehammer. He was hungover, not in his own room, and there was a bottle of painkillers on the bedside table. There was no way he picked someone up at his _own_ house party and went home with them, when his bedroom was just meters away.

He rubs his eyes, sitting up on the bed with a small groan. He realises he’s and idiot for not realising where he was the second he woke up, and now the sledgehammer feeling in his head had surpassed to a sharp axe.

He pushes the cover off himself quickly, grabbing his jeans and shirt from where they were on his bed and tugging them on. He has no recollection of how he got here, and somehow he was unable to put the pieces together of what in the world happened last night.

He was in Liam’s house, in the spare bedroom, with no Liam beside him. He walks to the bathroom and washes his face his face, opening the cupboard under the sink in search of a new toothbrush because currently he felt like something had died in his mouth.

He brushes his teeth quickly, walking out of the bathroom when he hears voices coming from downstairs. “Yeah, I’ll catch up with you in a bit!” He hears Liam say, followed by the sound of steps up the stairs.

he gets a sudden and vague recollection throwing himself at Liam last night, and dread pools in the bottom of his stomach. Shit. He hears the footsteps walking closer, and Zayn steps further back into the room, until the back of his knees hit the edge of the bed. He wasn’t ready for any type of confrontation yet; he had only _just_ started processing the sheer humiliation of the situation.

He can hear his heart pounding in his chest, and he’s sure that time has slowed down because it feels like the sweats been building on is hairline for hours until the bedroom door opens.

Liam walks towards him, his brows are furrowed and shoulders squared, he looks like a lion that was approaching its prey. It makes Zayn’s stomach do several nervous backflips.

Liam stops in front of Zayn, grabs his face while surging forward and kisses him. His lips move fast and hard against Zayn’s, desperate and urgent as he pushes closer into his space, and Zayn hardly gets a second to process what’s happening. This was different to their normal kisses, this was aggressive and maybe a little violent given the way Liam was sharply pulling at Zayn’s bottom lips with his teeth. He feels a tug of arousal at the way Liam’s tongue moves into his mouth both impatient and needy.

Liam pulls away after a moment, his breath coming out more shallow as his eyes dart around Zayn’s face. He waits for Liam to say something, his heart feeling like it was in a knot getting tighter the longer the silence went on.

Liam takes a step back, and then another, and just before he makes a move to turn around a strangled noise leaves Zayn’s throat.

“Liam.” He croaks, his voice sounding wrecked. The other man stops and just looks at him, waiting for him to say something. “You kissed me.” He doesn’t know if he’s asking a question, but his voice comes out timid and confused.

“You should get to work, your late.” Liam says, his voice lacking any emotion. It was so difficult to _read_ him sometimes.

“What? _No_ ,” Zayn says incredulously, “What the hell Liam? We need to talk about this.” The shyness had kind of just fizzled away now, he just wanted answers. Liam kissed _him_ , there was no way he was going to let him go back to his normal life and just forget it ever happened. It was unfair and Zayn was sick of this rut he was seemingly just _stuck_ in.

Liam looks distressed, and Zayn realises maybe he’s not the only one who’s finding this so difficult. Liam scrunches his eyes closed, running his hands through his hair. “ _Fuck_.” He mutters under his breath.

“Liam?” Zayn asks, his voice more gently now. It was kind of scary seeing Liam looking so confused and scared, he was always the one so sure of what he was feeling.

“You need to leave, Zayn, please.” Liam pleads, opening his eyes. Zayn notices Liam’s eyelashes are dewy.

“No.” He replies. “Talk to me. Please, just talk to me.”

He sees the exact moment when Liam snaps, his jaw clenches and his eyes angry. “What do you want to hear?” He shouts, and the loudness in his voice makes Zayn jump a little. “Do you want me to tell you about how I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the day we met? Or that all I can see is your face when I’m with my –my fucking _wife_ , Zayn. You’ve crawled under my _skin_.”

“You don’t love her.” He replies automatically.

“I don’t love _you_ either.” Liam shoots straight back.

Zayn scoffs. “Should’ve sent me on my way last night, then.”

“Fucking should have.” Liam seethes out, he moves closer to Zayn now, invading his personal space. His hands hover up his chest, until one hand is on his neck and the other touching the side of his face. Zayn feels light and the familiarity of the touch has him overwhelmed for a second, and then he just feels sick all over again.

He pushes Liam’s hands off of him, “I know I was probably begging for it last night, but I was drunk and it doesn’t mean I’m going to bend over for you while you’re still in a relationship.” Zayn says sharply, then exhales loudly. “I just want you to talk to me. Properly.”

Liam moves past him and sits down onto the bed, crossing his legs. “I thought I was doing the right thing.” He says.

“By lying to me about being married?” Zayn asks with a snort.

“ _No_.” He says sharply. And then he talks. It’s like he was finally taking a fresh breath of air, unravelling all the trauma tangled up inside him. He talks about how he’s always made to feel that his wife cheating on him was his fault, because he was distant. He talks about how he knows she doesn’t love him either, but he’s familiar and safe for her, and how he feels trapped in his own home. How it was devastating watching the life he’d built for them crumble, and feeling like he was losing everything.

“She knows we’re over, that we’re not going anywhere.” Liam says. “I feel like. She’s just sticking around for old time’s sake. Hoping something will change.”

Then he looks at Zayn, eyes wide and earnest, “And Zayn, I know we haven’t really had a proper talk about this, but I want you to know how sorry I am for everything. I don’t know what I was thinking, I just –loved what I had with you? I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“You still managed do to that quite effortlessly.” Zayn replies flippantly.

Liam looks at him curiously for a minute, “You _are_ going to forgive me at some point, right?” He asks, his voice low.

“What if I don’t?”

Liam bites back a smile. “You can show up at my doorstop drunk off your ass and ask me if I missed your mouth around my dick.”

“I didn’t.” Zayn says, cheeks colouring red, completely mortified.

“Did.” Liam lips push up into a smile. “I do, by the way.”

“ _Leeyum_ ,” He whines, he does not like being teased about what he said while intoxicated, ignoring the tug of arousal in his stomach. Still, he feels less tense and he kind of wants to reach out and touch Liam. He missed this. “Y’can get me a thousand red roses, then I’m might think about forgiveness.”

“That’s a lot of roses.” Liam huffs out a small laugh, before he glances away. “We’re getting late.”

Zayn crawls onto the bed, laying down and facing the ceiling. “Well,” He says, tucking his hands behind his head. “I’ve done my hours for week, I have nowhere to be.”

Liam turns around, sitting facing Zayn with is legs crossed. He frowns down at him. “You’re usually the first one in the hospital and the last one out, what have they done to you?” he asks in mock surprise.

“That’s the Zayn you used to know, he’s a thing of the past now.” Zayn supplies easily. “ _Karen_ tells me I should take it easy.”

Liam rolls his eyes. “She should tell you to lay off the alcohol.” He says, poking Zayn’s stomach. “And hit the gym.”

“She should tell you to stop being an _ass_.” He says, slapping Liam’s hand away.

Liam bites the inside of his cheeks, his fingers back to dancing on Zayn’s clothed stomach. Zayn doesn’t push it off this time, he liked the gently pressure of Liam’s fingers dragging across his abdomen, there was something so innocent about the gesture it made his heart flutter.

“When are you going to tell her?” Zayn asks, the question dying to escape his throat.

Liam sighs. “She already _knows_ , Z.” He says, exasperated. “At this point, she’s just as tired as me at trying to fix this thing of ours. She has one last case at this hospital today, and then I guess my parting gift to her will be the plan ticket I pay for.”

Zayn bites on the inside of his bottom lip. “And then what?”

Liam drags his fingers higher up, up past his ribs and racing the dip between his pecs. “Whatever you want.” He says easily.

“You know what I want?” Zayn asks, voice low.

Liam looks at him, his gaze soft. “What?”

“A Jacuzzi, that seats four people.” Zayn responds, with a wistful smile. He doesn’t say the mantra of _I want you_ spinning around his head, because it was still a terrifying thought. Terrifying and exhilarating.

Liam groans and lightly smacks Zayn’s stomach, who rolls over with a laugh. “Whatever, I’m going to work. And get out my _house_.”

*

Sophia leaves the city a week later. That day, Liam doesn’t show up to work. Or the day after. After another week of absence, something inside Zayn twists with nerves.

It was a rational thing to do, he needs space and time to adjust. This was a big step in Liam’s life, he was opening a new chapter and he just needed _time_. Zayn couldn’t expect him to jump straight into his arms the same day he takes the final step out of a long-term relationship. That would be absurd.

He also has no idea if this means that him and Liam are going to be an official thing now. Official as in actual boyfriends, more dates and less sneaking into empty rooms on their break for sex. Not that he had no objection to the way their spent their breaks, but this time round he wanted to mean something more to Liam and there to be no secrets between them.

The thought was making Zayn giddy with nerves. He spends a lot of time contemplating sending a text to Liam, but decides against it, if Liam wanted to reach out, he would. And even if he decides eventually that he doesn’t want to jump into another relationship so soon, he could deal with that. It would hurt of course, because of the small inconvenience that Zayn was a little in love with Liam.

He decides he needs to stop torturing himself by racking his brain for every possible outcome, and just wait it out.

He clocks out of the hospital a few hours before midnight because work was slow and Styles’ was refusing to listen to his problems. Louis and Niall tell him they were going to stick around for a while, and wave him off dismissively.

He’s more annoyed on his walk home than usual because Louis was supposed to drive him and they never stay later than Zayn. He guesses that was the problem with having friends as roommates, it was impossibly hard to separate the two expectations.

The house was empty all day, so when he pushes the front door open to smell Chinese food and a flowers. His first thought is, someone broke into his house and is enjoying takeaway here now, but then he flicks the light on, and his second thought is Liam is the biggest idiot on the planet.

The downstairs is empty, the only difference being the path of rose petals on the floor, leading up the stairs. He’s pretty sure his heart is melting, because even though his scope was limited, he was sure this was Liam doing something romantic for him.

“Liam?” He calls out, tentatively taking a step forward. He doesn’t get a response, so he follows the petals up the stairs. He can feel the nerves dancing at the bottom of hid stomach, but there as something light there too, something that felt like relief and excitement.

He picks up his pace a little, following the scatter of flowers to his bedroom. He pauses for second, taking a deep breath before pushing it open.

The first thing he sees is red. Piles of roses, scattered on his bed, the floor, his desk, everywhere. He does think his room has ever looked so spectacularly beautiful. It knocks the wind out of him, seeing Liam standing amidst it all, with a shy smile and his hands fiddling with a single rose of his own.

Zayn just blinks at him for a moment, taking in the scene in front of him. This was the stuff out of fairy tales, with their sweet and soft handsome princes.

“Hi.” Liam says, his voice hesitant but Zayn could sense the underlying excitement.

“Liam.” He takes a few steps forward, wiping his sweating palms on the side of his jeans. “What’s all this?” He asks softly, and he tries to reign in the fondness in his eyes, but he’s certain he fails at that.

“It’s not exactly a thousand roses.” Liam blurts outs. Zayn thinks he’s never looked so beautiful, the soft glow of the bedroom illuminating the sharp planes of his cheekbones and making his eyes look impossibly innocent. “I know this is cheesy as shit, but I wanted to do something – something that would help you understand what I’m trying to say – what I feel.”

“This isn’t how I wanted us to be at all, Zayn. If I could change the circumstances in which we met, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I know I don’t deserve to even be standing in front of you telling you all this, but I’m going to try anyway. When I met you, didn’t expect my whole world to flip upside-down, I was so _sure_ of myself and then –and then you came around and nothing made sense anymore. Every time I was with you I felt like a new and better version of myself and I just –I’ve never had that before and it was the most refreshing thing.”

Liam pauses, taking a deep breath, eyeing Zayn with uncertainty. Zayn let out a shaky breath of his own, ignoring the unfamiliar tingling sensation flowing through his body. “Can you just – are we on the same page here? Or a similar a similar page, fuck, even –“

“ _Liam_.” Zayn cuts him off with a soft laugh.

Liam smiles at him nervously. “I don’t want us to jump into this thing unless I know you trust me, we started off so rocky and I know that changed how you see me. I just want you too wholeheartedly and blindly trust me. And forgive me –forgive me for how this started.”

“You have to forgive yourself first.” Zayn says, his voice low.

“I—what?” Liam asks, brows furrowed in confusion. Zayn wants to laugh at how much he looked like a baby deer, so sweet and innocent.

“You’re holding it against yourself, everything that happened. You’ve been beating yourself up about this for a while.” He says. “I know it was kind of screwed up, what happened, but shit—you didn’t do me wrong, not really.”

A laugh bubbles out of Liam’s throat this time, “If you think that, then you’re more gone for me than I thought.”

Zayn frowns at him, gently pushing at his shoulder. “Shut up, Liam. I’ve had a long time to think about this, it was a mess but – it’s okay, we can be okay.”

Liam tilts his head at him slightly, “It can be different this time, so much better. Fuck—I want to give you everything Zayn. I forced myself not to feel anything for you because I knew I wouldn’t be doing right by you, but fuck if it wasn’t killing me. All I wanted to do press kisses into your skin and tell you how much I love you bu- ”

Liam cuts himself off abruptly, his eyes looking startled as he realises what he just said, and Zayn feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

“Shit, okay, fuck. I could have done that a lot more elegantly, forget I said that –“

A strangled noise leaves the back of the Zayn’s throat, and Liam pauses, brows furrowed in what looked like frustration. “Shit, Zayn, I’m sorry, that was way too soon I didn’t-“

“Shut up,” Zayn says, with a force he didn’t know he could muster. Liam looks confused and a bit affronted for a second, before Zayn moves forward and closes the space between them. “Shut _up_.” He slides his hand up Liam’s neck, resting it on his jaw, as he tilts his chin up and leans forward and catches Liam’s lips in a kiss.

Liam is still at first, then hesitantly kisses him back, their lips moving against each other in the shyest and tentative kiss Zayn’s ever shared with anyone. Liam’s hand is gently, when it moves up Zayn’s forearm, then sliding to his back to press them closer together.

Zayn pulls away first, keeping his hands on Liam’s neck, his thumbs gently sliding across his collarbones. “So I guess we should be honest with each other, yeah?” Zayn says, his lips quirking up into a small smile.

Liam nods, blinking down at Zayn nervously. He’s about to make his own confession, when Liam interrupts him. “I don’t take it back,” He says suddenly, and Zayn just listens curiously. “I love you, I don’t want to scare you off but I’m not backing out of this now, and you don’t have to say it back. I love you. everything about you, and I should have just admitted it to myself, to _you_ , when the feeling hit me like a brick in the chest. I know how cowardly I was, it was terrifying feeling this way for someone but. I don’t want it to stop. I want to be overwhelmed by my feelings for you for as long as you’d let me.”

Liam looks like he didn’t even intend for half of what he said to lip of his tongue, his eyes were full of apprehension and doubt, and Zayn feels as though his heart is about to explode out his chest.

“I thought med school taught me for everything I needed.” Zayn says. “Still didn’t prepare me to fall in love with my boss.”

The small breath of air that comes out of Liam’s mouth is full of relief, as if he wasn’t sure that Zayn even felt close to what he did. That thought was absurd to Zayn. Liam was _everything_.

Zayn felt as if the weight he’d been carrying around on his chest had finally been lifted, no amount of alcohol or partying or therapy could provide him this kind of relief. He felt safe standing in front of Liam, after having every bit of tension between them dissolve and forgotten, the storm inside him finally settling.

He was suddenly restless and excited and all he wanted to do was pin Liam down on his bed and bite kisses into his skin.

“So we’re starting over?” Liam asks, interrupting Zayn’s not so appropriate thoughts.

“Yeah, I suppose we are.”

“Good, we’re going to do this properly. A date first, everything else second.”

“Wait, what? What counts as ‘everything else’, I kind of hand plans that involved you and me and my bed. Can this count as our date?” He rambles on, an indignant look in his eyes. “We can’t just act as if we’re starting over, I still know you, who the hell needs to date, anyway?”

Liam is doubled up with laughter when Zayn is done, “Leeyum,” He whines. “Stop laughing. I missed you.”

Liam’s grinning now, and he moves forward and wraps his arm around Zayn’s waist. “Missed you too.” He kisses Zayn gently, like he was something breakable, and manoeuvres him onto the bed.

Zayn yelps, “I think a rose thorn just pierced my neck!”

Liam groans which turns into a laughs, brushing the roses off the bed “You think I’d get roses with thorns on them for a delicate princess like you?”

This time Zayn groans, throwing his arm over his face. “Piss off, Liam. I could’ve died.” He laughs and all he can feel in his chest is an overwhelming happiness replacing all the doubt that made itself at home there previously.

“Lucky for you,” Liam says, as he climbs on top of Zayn, straddling him, “I’m a doctor.”

“Well guess what hotshot,” Zayn drawls out, adjusting his position to lean on his elbows, “I’m a doctor too.”

“You’re an intern,” Liam supplies, sliding his hands under Zayn’s shirt. “An unbelievably attractive intern.”

He leans down and kisses Zayn’s neck, his touch soft and teasing, before he rolls off and lands on his back besides Zayn. “I’m glad we’re doing this, Z.”

Zayn turns onto his side, his head resting on Liam’s shoulder. “Yeah, me too.” He breathes out. “I love you.” The words are light on his tongue, and saying them feels like relief and a calmness at the end of a long day.

 The tiredness of the day washes over them slowly, and they fall asleep like that, whispering sweet words to each other like old time lovers.

 

 

**Epilogue**

 

Zayn is familiar with pre-surgery nerves, they’re rattling and make it so easy to lose your footing in the surgery theatre and it’s oh-so-easy to be consumed by them. But this was a different, unfamiliar, kind of nervous. Because this wasn’t about him. He wasn’t used to feeling his whole body riddled with nerves for someone else, and it was enthralling.

Eleanor and Harry were sitting on one side of him, and Louis and Niall on the other, patiently sitting outside the Chief’s office. They probably looked like school children ready for a telling off, with the way their eyes were wide and their lips caught between their teeth.

“He’ll be fine.” Louis says to no one in particular, his voice an octave higher than usual. His hand circles Zayn’s wrist, gripping onto it tightly.

“Yeah,” Harry says, sounding like he was talking to himself. “He deserves this.”

He finds it fascinating that after a year how everyone’s relationship with each other developed. It took for Zayn to move into the second year of their internship for him to get on a first name basis with Harry, and the first time he was allowed to call him by it he was sure he was having a power high.

Harry eventually takes a liking to Liam too, and after their first major surgery together they were practically joined at the hip. (“This is odd; I didn’t think our two Dad’s would become friends like this.” Louis had commented, and Zayn had just made a face at him.)

It didn’t take long for Louis and Niall to get used to the almost permanent fixture of Liam in their house either, the crude comments had fizzled to almost nothing when Liam’s makes his way downstairs with frazzled hair and no shirt.

“If he doesn’t get it, so what.” Niall says, “I don’t think he suits much being the chief of surgery anyway.”

Harry groans into his hands. “No, Horan. This is the most important thing that’s happening in this hospital today.”

“Uh, there’s currently a heart and liver transplant happening in ER2.” Eleanor points out. “In the same person.”

Harry glares at her.

He tunes out most of their bickering, instead focusing on the way his leg was nervously tapping on the tiled floor. Liam could get the position as chief of surgery and all his dreams would be fulfilled, or he the promotion could bypass him and go to another doctor, which would lead to Zayn having a very miserable boyfriend.

They’re all startles suddenly when the lever of the door in front of them is pulled down, and it like all five of them suck in a sharp breath simultaneously. the door opens and they all jump up, staring at the door silently with their mouths agape.

Liam steps out, letting out a long breath, his eyes wide and nervous.

“ _Well_?” Harry says urgently, beating them all to it.

Liam looks at them for a second, his eyes stopping at Zayn. “I got the promotion.”

The relief that flows through him have him grinning like a fool, and the quiet of the hallway is disturbed by the other four yelling and being their nuisance selves. Zayn doesn’t waste a second, and instantly closes the space between them and wraps his arms around Liam. “You really got it?” He murmurs into Liam’s shoulder, holding him tightly.

“Yeah,” Liam breathes out. “I can’t believe it. I was shitting myself.”

Zayn pulls away and holds Liam’s shoulders at an arm’s length. “You were shitting yourself? What about us? We’ve been sitting here for two hours!” He says dramatically, with a shit-eating grin on his face. He takes the moment he has with Liam and leans forwards and presses their lips together quickly, kissing him forcefully before their moment can be inevitably interrupted by anyone. “I’m so proud of you.” He mumbles against his lips.

“Thank you, babe.” Liam replies, pecking his lips again.

“Okay, great, now move.” Harry’s large hands grab his shoulders and move him out of the way, before he envelops Liam into a hug.

Zayn doesn’t even complain, because his heart is swelling with pride and he’s consumed with the happiness that Liam finally achieved what he’s been working towards.

They all pull Liam into hugs, offering their congratulations and Liam’s smile looks permanently plastered onto his face, it made Zayn impossibly happy.

“We’re going to get celebratory drinks now.” Louis announces, ushering them away from the office area.

The others walk a few paces ahead of them, while Zayn and Liam follow behind a bit slower. Liam glances at him, biting back a smile, as he knocks their shoulders together.

Zayn smiles, leaning into the touch and tangling their fingers together. “So proud of you, Li.” He says, leaning his head onto Liam’s shoulder.

“Couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t had my back.” Liam replies, placing a kiss on the top of his head.

Zayn just scoffs, “This was all you.” He says, swinging their arms a little. “Bask in the glory. This hospital is yours.”

Liam’s eyes are wondrous, full off expectations and an eagerness to do what he loves as he glances around the familiar halls. His gaze lands on Zayn, his eyes sparkling, “I’m so glad I have you, you can’t even imagine.” He says, “I know you’re just going to deny it, but I really couldn’t have done this without you. Knowing that I had your unconditional support was everything.”

“Liam, my love.” Zayn says, as they pause their trek, “You have my support, my love, my everything, yeah? Everything is yours, for as long as you want.”

Liam exhales slowly his eyes not wavering from Zayn, and Zayn should be used to the look of pure adoration and love in his eyes but still, somehow, it knocks the breath out of him every time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so hesitant to post this chapter i really have no idea how i feel about it. I know the cliffhanger on ch.1 had lot's of people excited and im sorry if this chapter was really underwhelming D:
> 
> also i just want to say that all the comments and messages i got on the previous chapter were so incredible to read it made me so happy that you enjoyed and you probably didn't even realise how much the your feedback meant!! so thank you for that it was rlly nice :)
> 
> tumblr: @zrdu - feel free to drop a message!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys i'm very self unaware so please let me know if this was any good! hmu on tumblr too if u like @zrdu


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